World Literature
Ivan Turgenev
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Love in the Time of Cholera or El Amor en los tiempos del cólera
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Oroonoko: Or the Royal Slave, A True History
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The Knights or Hippikos
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The Labyrinth of Solitude or El Laberinto de la Soledad
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The Libation Bearers or Choephoroe
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The Libation-Bearers or Choephori
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Oedipus at Colonus or Oidipous epi Kolono
The play describes the end of Oedipus's tragic life.
R.U.R. or Rossum's Universal Robots
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Rabindranath Tagore
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Reuben
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Saleem Sinai (prompt on Sinai)
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Silence
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Sir Rabindranath Tagore
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Snow Country (also accept Yukiguni)
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The Birds or Ornithes
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The Grouch or Dyskolos
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The Handmaid's Tale
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The Phoenician Women or Phonissai
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The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea (accept Gogo no eiko)
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The Satanic Verses
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Thomas Keneally
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Tulsidas
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a ghost
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 Midnight's Children
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 “Rashomonâ€
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“El Aleph†[or “The Alephâ€]
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Aureliano Buendia [Prompt on Buendia]
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Averroes or Ibn Rushd
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Babi Yar
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Physics (Physica/Phusika)
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Baudolino
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Betrayed by Rita Hayworth or La traicion de Rita Hayworth
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Bless Me, Ultima
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Book of Numbers
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Bus Stop
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Pierre Corneille
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Pierre Menard
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C. Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio Maecenatianus
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Cancer Ward [or Rakovy Korpus]
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Chikamatsu Monzaemon
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Chikamatsu Monzaemon [accept in either order; or Sugimori Nobumori]
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Chinua Achebe
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Chinua Achebe [or Albert Chinualumogu Achebe]
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Crito
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Deborah
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Derek Alton Walcott
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Derek Walcott
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Diary of a Madman (or Zapiski sumashedskogo)
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Disgrace
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Dnevnik lishnego cheloveka or The Diary of a Superfluous Man
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Du Fu [or Tu Fu]
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Edwidge Danticat
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Electra
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Gao Xingjian (accept either)
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Genji
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Georgics
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Golden Lotus or P'an Chin-Lien
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Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard
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Haruki Murakami
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Haruki Murakami (accept names in either order)
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Hippolytus
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House of the Spirits (La casa de los espirítus)
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I Ching or The Book of Changes
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Ivan Bunin
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Ivo Andric
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Jorge Amado
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Jorge Luis Borges
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Jorge Luis Borges (boor-hays)
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Jose (Julian) Marti y Perez
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Kalidasa
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Like Water for Chocolate
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Prometheus Bound
Aeschylus
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As it opens, the king orders a group of praying women to disperse. The title characters dip their hands in the blood of a bull, and a champion defender is chosen to meet each attacker at a gate; all defenders are successful, but the king is killed while fighting his brother. FTP, name this Aeschylus play in which Eteocles organizes a defense against Hippomedon, Capaneus, Tydeus, Parthenopaeus, Adrastus, Amphiaraüs, and Polynices.
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Mishima Yukio
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands [or Dona Flor e seus dois maridos]
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India
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The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas [or Epitaph of a Small Winner; or The Posthumous Memories of Brás Cubas; or Memórias póstumas de Bras Cubas]
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The Recognition of Shakuntala aka Abhijnanashakuntalam
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The Remains of the Day
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The Road to Mecca
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The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea (or Gogo no Eiko)
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The Silent Cry
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The Sound of the Mountain or Yama no oto
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The Story of the Stone [or Dream of the Red Chamber; or A Dream of Red Mansions; or Red Chamber Dream; or Hung Lou Meng]
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The Tale of Genji or Genji monogatari
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The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (or Kinkakuji)
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The Temple of the Golden Pavilion [or Kinkaku-ji]
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The Temple of the Golden Pavilion or Kinkakuji
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The Tin Drum [or Der Blechtrommel]
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The Trojan Women
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The Trojan Women or Troades
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The Underdogs or Los de Abajo
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The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
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The Woman Warrior
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The Woman in the Dunes (or: Suna no Onna)
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The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis or Ano da morte de Ricardo Reis
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Theocritus
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Things Fall Apart
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Thousand Cranes
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Thousand Cranes [or Sembazuru]
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Yukio Mishima
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Yukio Mishima [or Kimitake Hiraoka; accept both names in either order]
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Yvgeny Yevtuschenko
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Zeami Motokiyo (accept Kanze Motokiyo before it is mentioned)
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Zend Avesta
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a window [accept windowsill, windowpane, other portions of a window]
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bees [or BEEEEEEEEEEEEES]
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beheading or decapitation (accept equivalents)
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birds
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dactylic hexameter [prompt on partial answer]
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dithyramb
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donkeys [accept asses]
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gaucho literature
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house
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prostitutes [or clear-knowledge equivalents]
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A recent translation by Ted Hughes used free verse to render its rhymed Alexandrine couplets. Among the changes its author made from the classical text on which it was based was the title character's desire to put her own son on the throne and the addition of Aricie, a captive princess, whom the male lead, earlier strictly a devotee of Artemis, falls in love with. The nurse Oenone plays the pivotal role, falsely telling King Theseus that his son has seduced his wife. FTP name this tragedy, based on a Euripides play, in which Hippolyte shuns the love-struck title character, written by Racine.
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It ends with a monologue in which the Student announces that appearances can mask evil, along with a warning to the audience that they cannot escape their sins. Characters inlcude Hummel, a vampire; the Colonel, his enemy; a Mummy, the Colonel's wife, and an unnamed girl who lives on hyacinths. For 10 points--name this expressionist one-act drama by August Strindberg.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich [accept Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha]
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The Death of Artemio Cruz or La muerte de Artemio Criz
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The Death of Ivan Ilyich
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Firdousi or Ferdowsi or Firdausi or something very similar
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Crónica de una muerte anunciada or Chronicle of a Death Foretold
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Czeslaw Milosz
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Death and the Maiden
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Deirdre or Derdriu of the Sorrows
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"Our America" or "Nuestra America"
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"Seven Against Thebes"
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"The Aleph"
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A mailboat arrives carrying the message of the title figures that everyone must die. The trouble is first noticed when the physiologist Dr. Gall begins to notice different grades of intelligence, pain, and heart flutters in his subjects. This play begins with a visit from the President of the Humanitarian League, Helena Glory, who later burns the formula for the central creations manufactured by Harry Domin's factory. In the end only Alquist is spared and he discovers a growing love between a copy of Helena and Primus. FTP, identify this drama about renegade robots by Karel Capek.
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Among his non-fiction works are An Area of Darkness and Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey. A Way in the World is an essay-like novel that examines how history forms individuals' characters, and Guerrillas is a bleak look at an abortive uprising on a Caribbean island. His stories in In a Free State won him the Booker Prize, and A House for Mr. Biswas was set in his native Trinidad. FTP, name the Caribbean-born Indian author who won the 2001 Nobel Prize for literature.
Lysistrata
Aristophanes' comedy about the Great Peloponnesian War
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Confusion occurs in this play over two meanings of the Greek word dinos. Its protagonist marvels upon hearing that one character dipped the legs of a flea in melted wax to measure the distance it could jump. Before this play begins, we learn that a lizard had defecated in the open mouth of that character, who claims he is "walking on air and attacking the mystery of the sun" while hanging in a basket. During this play, Right Logic loses a debate to Wrong Logic, after an attempt to avoid paying his debts leads Strepsiades to enroll his son Pheidippides at the Thinkery of Socrates. For 10 points, identify this play by Aristophanes named for its chorus of celestial objects.
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Father Cayetano Delaura, a librarian awaiting appointment as curator of the Sephardic collection at the Vatican Library, is put in charge of the exorcism of a young girl, Sierva Maria, who calls herself Maria Mandinga and who is assumed possessed due in part to her embrace of African culture. Delaura falls in love with her, but his religious duty prevents them from being together, and he eventually is sentenced to care for lepers. FTP, this action comes from what 1994 work by the author of The General in His Labyrinth?
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Forty-seven different men worked on its preparation according to fifteen rules. It was created as a result of John Reynolds's motion at the Hampton Court Conference. First prepared from 1604 from 1611, it was followed by many revisions, including a still-used edition supervised by Samuel Wilberforce. FTP, name this common English translation of the Bible.
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Friedrich Schiller's Maria Stuart was inspired by one of this man's lyrics, and his most famous work provided the idea for the prologue to Goethe's Faust. His two epic poems are Birth of the War God and Dynasty of Raghu, but his fame resides in his three extant dramas, two of which include Malavi and Agnimitra and Urvasi Won by Valor. His best known work concerns the love of king Dushyanta for the poor titular maiden. FTP, name this turn of the 5th-century Indian dramatist of Shakuntala.
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Fusako divorces her drug-addicted husband to live with her two young children at her parents' house. Shuichi carries on an affair for a year, which leads to a child despite having his wife get an abortion. Shuichi's wife, Kikuko, is the object of the affections of Shuichi's father, who also pines for his first wife Yasuko. That father gets no respect due to his absent-mindedness, though the novel details the richness of his thoughts as he approaches death. The title refers to his auditory experience of natural beauty. FTP, identify this novel concerning Ogata Shingo written by Yasunari Kawabata.
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George Bradley's collection The Fire Fetched Down contains one of these written for Douglas Crase. The first "digression" in this work concludes that man's labor is integral to realizing the will of the gods, while later the poet talks of love in terms of lust and reproduction. Perhaps based on a work by Nicander of Colophon, commentators have focused on the passages referred to as the "Praises of Italy" and the closing epyllions to this work, which discuss the nymph Cyrene and the myth of Aristaeus as well as the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Written in honor of its author's patron Maecenas, the fourth and final book concerns beekeeping. FTP, name this didactic poem by Virgil ostensibly about agriculture.
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He claimed that the west's pure-white skin allowed westerners to adopt bright lights, and exalted elegant toilets in one work, and he told of a beautiful woman who gets a "prostitute spider" emblazoned on her body in another. This author of "In Praise of Shadows" and "The Tattooer" wrote of a centipede bite killing Tsuneko in a work by this author that sees Tadasu fantasize about breastfeeding. In another of his works, Yukiko is the most westernized of the title characters. In addition to "The Bridge of Dreams," he wrote a novel in which Kaname and Misako's marriage dissolves. For 10 points, name this Japanese author of Some Prefer Nettles and The Makioka Sisters.
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He has advocated independence from Great Britain for his nation, even writing a draft preamble for a proposed constitution. He authored a detective novel set on an Antarctic expedition entitled A Victim of the Aurora, while The Survivor, tells the story of a disastrous Arctic journey. Several of his novels concern the fate of regular people during the world wars, including By The Line, The Cut Rate Kingdom, and Season in Purgatory, while Gossip From the Forest concerns the negotiations at Versailles. Better known, however, are his novels concerning Aborigines, like Flying Hero Class and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. FTP, identify this Australian novelist best known for writing Schindler's Ark.
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He reflected on modernization in such philosophical works as The Home and the World and The Religion of Man, the latter of which was delivered as a Hibbert lecture at Oxford. Late in his life he turned to painting many of the same scenes he had described in novels like The Wreck and Three Companions. His dramatic works include The Post Office, but he is best known for contemplative collections of love and beauty like Songs of Kabir, Fireflies , and The Crescent Moon. His "Thou art the Ruler of all Minds" was adopted as the Indian national anthem after Yeats helped his Gitanjali become a sensation. FTP identify this Bengali author, the first Asian Nobel Prize winner in literature.
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He was converted to socialism by George Bernard Shaw, though his primary influence came under the tutelage of Salama Musa. He wrote several fictional indictments of his native country's revolution, including The Thief and the Dogs, The Beggar, and Karnak. Other works dealing with his country's politics include The Day the Leader was Killed and The Harafish, though he is better known for social works like Children of Gebelawi and Midaq Alley. The author of such works as Palace Walk and Palace of Desire, FTP, identify this Egyptian author and recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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He wrote a variation on Henry James' Turn of the Screw in which a composer named "D" kills the titular character, Aghwee the Sky Monster, and attacked a famous countryman in the novella The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away. A writer leaves his son in the care of Ma-Chan to spend a year at the University of California in his A Quiet Life, while a terrorist incident in his homeland was the basis for his novel about the Church of the New Man, Somersault. He has also written a novel featuring sodomy with a cucumber and one about a mentally ill boy and a black man named Bird, A Personal Matter. FTP, identify this Japanese author of Nip the Bud, Shoot the Kids and The Silent Cry.
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He wrote biographies on Chekhov, whom he knew personally, and also on Tolstoy. His long works include The Village, Mitya's Love, and the fictional autobiography The Well of Days. FTP, identify this writer most famous for his short stories and winner of the 1903 Puskin Prize for his translation of Longfellow's Hiawatha and winner of the 1933 Nobel Prize for Literature.
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His Essay on the Unreal Dwelling focused on the artist's relationship to nature. Shriveled Chestnuts was collaboration with disciples while Winter Sun saw his emergence as a more lyrical poet. It is in travelogues like The Records of a Travel Worn Satchel and The Narrow Road to the Deep North where critics see his later life turning away from the style of sabi, or loneliness to karumi, or lightness; a concept that would dominate the short meditative form he made so prominent. FTP, identify this author named for the banana plant hut he once lived in; a master of the Haiku form.
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His brother Roderick is also a playwright, and his own dramatic works include Ti-Jean and his Brothers and Pantomime. He is better known as a poet, though, and his recent books of verse include The Bounty and Tiepolo's Hound. FTP, name this author of In a Green Night and Omeros, a native of St. Lucia who won the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature.
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His father was a witness at Cremona to the suicide of Otho, and this man held two sinecures in the Ostian priesthood. This man's work was the primary source for Wilhelm Becker's social history Gallus. He served as controller of the libraries under Hadrian and wrote an encylopedic work called Meadows which is now lost. His second extant work is De viris illustribus, and his most famous work was dedicated to the praetorian prefect Septicius Clarus. He gives the last words of Julius Caesar as "You, too, my son?" in that work, which runs through the time of Domitian. For 10 points, name this author of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
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His first work concerned a doctor who discovers that his niece was impregnated not by her husband, Red, but by Robert, her brother. Shortly before being committed to an insane asylum, he penned a work about Mr. Bellmont, who has the embarrassing tic of trying to lick his own ear, which he developed after being ruined by his son, the most famous soccer referee in Peru. The unfaithfulness of this man's wife, a stripper, seems to have caused his irrational hatred of Argentines. This character's creator based him on Raul Salmon, a Bolivian coworker. FTP name this coworker of Mario Varguitas whose given name was Pedro Camacho, and who appears in the title of a Vargas Llosa novel along with Aunt Julia.
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Hroswitha's six comedies are based on the plays of this author, whose works Quintilian praised as "elegantissima." In one of this author's plays, Aeschinus abducts a Music Girl for his brother Ctesipho. This author wrote a play in which Chremes disguises himself as the title character to have sex with Panfila, as well as a play named for Menedemus, a farmer who punishes himself with hard work for forcing his son into the army. This author of Adelphoi adapted many works of Menander, including The Eunuch and the The Self-Tormentor. For 10 points, name this Roman playwright who was brought from Carthage to Rome as a senator's slave.
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In 1791, this novel was published in a complete version of 120 chapters, but the final 40 may have been forged by the publishers. It tells specifically of a young poet and his romances with an assortment of cousins and maid servants, including Daiyu and his eventual wife Baochai, and in general recounts the decline of the Chia family. FTP, name this novel concerning Paoyu by Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in, generally regarded as the greatest work of traditional Chinese narrative.
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In Rome he studied rhetoric under Epidius and learned from Siro the Epicurean, expressing his amazement at the city through the character of Tityrus. Among his minor works are the short epics Ciris and Culex and a didactic poem on volcanism, Aetna. He advised farmers to "First find your bees a settled sure abode/Where neither winds can enter" in the fourth Georgic, and prophesized the birth of a "miraculous child" in his fourth Eclogue. FTP, name this author who wrote of "arms and the man" and such characters as Dido and Anchises in the Aeneid.
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In a poem in this language, an exile convinces the titular entity, which is "frolicsome as an elephant," to carry a message to his wife. The same author also penned a play in this tongue in which the title woman loses a signet ring that is later discovered in the belly of a fish, after her husband Dushyanta is cursed. This language was used to write Shakuntala and "The Cloud Messenger" by Kalidasa, and it also provides the last three words of Eliot's The Waste Land, "shantih shantih shantih." For 10 points, name this language that was used to write the Upanishads and the Mahabharata.
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In an episode of this work, seven red cocks run away from a cockfight, after which a character decides to take his men to "Chasing Beach" and join the army encamped there. At the beginning of the final book, a great earthquake hits the capital, after which a fradulent skull is employed to persuade a character to enter into revolt. The first book ends with the burning of the inner palace following the uprising of the monks, and features a plot to assassinate a favorite of the abdicated emperor Toba on the last night of the Five Dancers Bountiful Radiant Harvest banquets. Possibly written by an official named Yukinaga, it ends with the execution of Rokudai, the great-grandson of Kiyumori, after the titular group is defeated at the battle of Dan-no-ura. FTP, name this work set during the later 12th century, which depicts the decline of the Taira clan and its defeat by the Genji.
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In her essay "A Bolter and the Invincible Summer" she admits to frequently skipping classes at convent school. Her more recent novels, The Pickup and The House Gun, are much less political than her first work, the story collection The Soft Voice of the Serpent. She furthered her political views in The Conservationist and July's People. However, it was The Burger's Daughter that was banned in her country for its stark portrayal of an entrenched discriminatory system. FTP, name this South African winner of the 1991 Nobel in Literature.
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In one novel by this author, the foundling daughter of a dress shop owner discovers her identical twin, confusing the weaver Hideo. This author also wrote a novel in which Uragami reports on a six month long match between the materialistic Otake and the spiritual Shusai. This author of The Old Capital wrote a novel in which the protagonist has a fling with his father's mistress Mrs. Ota. In addition to writing The Master of Go, this author wrote a novel in which the self appointed western ballet expert Shimamura has an affair with the geisha Komako. For 10 points, name this Japanese author of Thousand Cranes and Snow Country.
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In one of this author's works, Shozo eschews the love of two women and devotes himself to his cat Lily. In another of his stories, a woman pretends to be a Buddhist saint to pose for an artist, while in another, a woman drastically changes after getting the tattoo of a spider. In another of his works a young engineer is obsessed with the title character, Naomi, while a later novel features a protagonist who dies from a stroke after sexual arousal. In his most famous books, Kaname chooses a geisha-like mistress over his wife Misako, and a group of four women try to find a husband for Yukiko. FTP, name this Japanese author of Some Prefer Nettles and The Makioka Sisters.
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In one of this man's novels, the narrator's face becomes scarred after being splashed with liquid oxygen, and he decides to seduce his wife wearing a realistic mask. In one of his plays, a miner is murdered and the heads of two unions investigate. Besides The Face of Another and Pitfall, this man wrote a play in which the titular object contains the ancestors of a character's husband, The Suitcase, and a novel in which the main character discovers radishes growing on his shins, Kangaroo Notebook. A man decides to wear a cardboard box over his head at all times in his The Box Man, while Professor Katsumi writes a computer program that predicts children will be genetically engineered to live in the ocean in his Inter Ice Age 4. In another of this man's novels, Niki Junpei is trapped in a pit by the titular widow. For 10 points, name this Japanese author of Woman in the Dunes.
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In one of this man's works, a drought dissipates after the protagonist is bitten by a mad dog and dies, while in a novel by this author a man is able to sail across the ocean on his kerchief after missing his boat in the course of helping a woman locate her husband. He changed his surname to a bastardization of the original title of his story "Forsaken Wives," which was followed shortly by the novella And the Crooked Shall be Made Straight. The protagonist is rehabilitated by Dr. Langsam after being forced to marry Mina in his A Simple Story, while the title character spars with Daniel Bach and befriends Yeruham Freeman as head of the Beit Midrash in A Guest for the Night. Better-known for a picaresque novel about Reb Yudel Nathanson, The Bridal Canopy, this is, for 10 points, what Israeli author who in 1966 shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with Nelly Sachs?
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In one of this man's works, an attempted visit to Japan by Po Chu-i is blocked by Sumiyoshi, while in another, a slain poet haunts a cherry tree until a poem of his appears in an imperial manuscript. Many of his works focus on disguises, including the story of the bodhisattva Fugen who dresses up as a harlot, Eguchi. Still others focus on recent military events, including the story of the lost bow of Yoshitsune, Yashima. All of his works apply principles from his manual Fushikaden, or The Transition of the Flower of Acting, which stressed the importance of subsurficial beauty, or yogen found in plays like Pine Wind. FTP, name this second master of the Kanze School, the author of The Robe of Feathers and Atsumori, and the creator of the modern No drama.
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In one plot development, Mauricio Babilonia is paralyzed after being shot due to his tryst with Meme, whose outgoing nature leads her to invite 72 of her friends home from boarding school. The fortune-teller Pilar Ternera and the gypsy Melquiades provide guidance to the members of the central family, which is held together for many year by Ursula Iguaran in spite of the turmoil caused by the rebellion of Colonel Aureliano Buendia. Set in the town of Macondo, FTP, what is this masterpiece of magical realism by Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
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In one point of the work named for this figure, he is shown seven loaves of bread in different states, which proves that he failed to stay awake for seven days. This figure finds a plant that is “like a boxthorn,†which is eaten by a snake. After his friend goes to the “house of dust,†this figure seeks out immortality from Utnapishtim. Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to kill this figure. This two-thirds divine figure slew Humbaba with the help of his friend, Enkidu. For 10 points, name this king of Uruk, the subject of an epic in Mesopotamian mythology.
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In one section it scolds those who abandon their mother to go sport in "decadent lands." It asserts that "the prize in literary contests should not go to the best ode, but for the best study of political factors," after noting that the struggle is not between civilization and barbarism, as posited by Sarmiento's Facundo, but "between false erudition and Nature." This work admonishes leaders that the words of Sieyes or Hamilton will not quicken the blood of the Indian, while its declaration that "there are no races" reflects its author's fight against bigotry during his homeland's struggle for independence. Published in 1891, this work presents the danger of residual colonial influence as a tiger and ends with an image of the Taino deity, Semi, astride a condor, as he sows the seeds of a new utopia from the Rio Grande to the Straits of Magellan. For 10 points, identify this nationalistic essay by Jose Marti.
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In one section of this work, one character recounts the chanting of “Go home†and the use of fire to banish the Sitting Ghost, while paranoia of “Mexican Ghosts†leads to the institutionalization of one character in another part. The characters “Crazy Mary†and “Pee-A-Nah†are described in another section of this work which also describes its protagonist's pulling at another character's hair in order to make her speak. This work, whose sections include “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe†and “Shaman,†also discusses the author's aunt, the No-Name Woman, and the comparison between getting straight A's and the exploits of Fa Mu Lan, the title character. Five talk-stories by Brave Orchid comprise, for 10 points, which autobiographical novel by Maxine Hong Kingston?
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In one work, this thinker concludes that if people like doctors and lawyers are capable of extrapolation, then religious thinkers are "surely able to do even better in that regard." That writing has been recently translated together with an Epistle Dedicatory and labeled as this man's Decisive Treatise. His other important ideas include the concept of an acquired intellect, which requires communication with active intellect, and his propagation of the idea of the "double truth." He composed some Generalities and Particularities on medical subjects, and wrote a work in response to al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Incoherence. FTP, identify this medieval Islamic philosopher who wrote commentaries on Aristotle.
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In the 13th section we can read about include a dog howling in daytime and an ox driver who hates his oxen and their annoyance to the author. In later parts the author claims that rice starch mixed with water is without merit and plum blossoms covered with snow are elegant. At present the most widely read translations of this book of lists are those done by Ivan Morris and Arthur Waley. Organized under headings such as "Amusing Things" and "Vexatious Things," FTP, name this 11th-century journal of Sei Shonagon which may have been kept on her bed.
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In the first stanza of this poem, the author tells his beloved that "the last age should show your heart" after their passions subside. The speaker's desire runs so deep that he would love her "ten years before the flood," but she could, "if [she] please, refuse / Till the conversion of the Jews." The second stanza expresses the author's angst about the future, when "Thy beauty shall no more be found," so he comes back to suggest that they "roll all [their] strength and all / [Their] sweetness up into one ball" near the end. Opening with the conjecture "Had we but world enough, and time," FTP name this poem in which the author hears "Time's winged chariot hurrying near," the most famous work of Andrew Marvell.
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In this novel, the Wall is a place near Harvard where the bodies of dissidents are displayed. Its protagonist is sent to the “Rachel and Leah Re-education Center†after her marriage to Luke is voided because Luke is divorced. Aunt Lydia indoctrinates this novel's protagonist, who is friends with a lesbian named Moira. In this novel, Serena Joy is the Commander's wife. Its plot centers on the recent establishment of the misogynist Republic of Gilead. For 10 points, name this dystopian novel focusing on Of-Fred, a work by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.
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In this work, a messenger encounters the title character singing on a farm and announces that a festival would be held in the honor of the Goddess Hera and that all Argive maidens were to attend. However, the protagonist refuses to attend so as to avoid becoming the object of the pitying eyes of the people of Argos. This is because the protagonist was forced to marry an elderly peasant farmer, so that her husband would not be able to avenge the wrongs wrought on her male family members by her mother and stepfather Aegisthos. Fortunately, her brother Orestes will return from hiding and kill not only Aegisthos, but also Clytemnestra. FTP, name this daughter of Agamemnon, the titular character of a drama written by Euripides.
athleticism, strength, and courage. Cinesias is the husband of Myrrhine and crazed with lust begs her to return. The title character is an idealistic Athenian who carries out her plan to seize the Acropolis with a band of celibate women in order to stop war. FTP name this play by Aristophanes.
It is said to be the most frequently performed Greek play in modern times, primarily because it deals with such timely themes. Lampito is a Spartan and exhibits the usual Spartan virtues
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Minor characters in this work include a French doctor whose parrot tells patients "Its nothing" and Darbon, the veterinarian. Due to small chairs, the central figure in this work is not sent to kindergarten. Described as having eyes like two scarabs of black crystal, the author promises not to throw him into a pit when he dies, and recounts the story of Anilla, who would dress as a ghost to scare local children. Set in the author's home town of Moguer, it is subtitled "Andalusian Elegy." FTP, identify this prose work about a man and his eponymous donkey, written by Juan Ramon Jimenez.
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Near the end of this novel there is a lengthy discussion of Chijimi linens. Originally published serially from 1935 to 1937, twelve years later, a final installment added a warehouse fire at which the protagonist reflects on the Milky Way. During this fire, he is separated from his lover Komako, who rushes forward to carry the possibly dead Yoko, whose lover is Komako's ex-fiancee, Yukio. The protagonist, Shimamura, had met both women several years before. FTP, identify this Kawabata Yasunari novel named for its setting in the wintry hot-spring area of western Honshu.
for 10 points - what Sanskrit masterpiece of Kalidasa?
On the banks of the river Malini, a king of the Puru dynasty meets the future mother of Bharata. They fall in love and marry according to the Ghandharva ceremony in which two people come together with nature as their witness. But when this daughter of Visvamitra and Menaka fails to take in the hermit Durvasa, he casts a curse causing her lover to forget her. The curse is broken when a fisherman finds the engagement ring inside a fish and at the play's end, the title character and Dushyanta are happily reunited. This describes
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One author from this country described the building of a dam in his Star of August, criticized multinational corporations in The Committee, and described his prison experiences in The Smell of It. Another author from this country collected his "stories and polemics" in The Sufferers, wrote the autobiography The Days, and advocated nationalism in a work titled The Future of Culture in this country. This country is home to the playwright of The People of the Cave and The Sultan's Dilemma as well as the author of Miramar and a trilogy about Kamal. Home to Sonallah Ibrahim and Taha Hussein, for 10 points, name this country, the setting of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet and Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy.
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One author from this country wrote about how a retired business man becomes erotically enchanted with his daughter-in-law, a dancer. The Tattoer and Arrowroot were written by an author from this country, while another author from this place wrote The Spring Equinox and Beyond. Another author from this country wrote about a man who seeks revenge on women by marrying them and having flamboyant gay affairs in Forbidden Colors. The author of Some Prefer Nettles was from this country, as was the writer of "In a Grove." For 10 points, name this home country of the guy who wrote The Sea of Fertility, Yukio Mishima, and "Rashomon," Akutagawa Ryonosuke.
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One character appoints himself an "effective evildoer" during a New Year's speech shortly after founding a local soccer team, which soon after results in that character's anger over the death of his brother S prompting him to lead a riot marked by ritualistic dancing. The novel begins in a septic pit and avoids ending in a cellar after the protagonist resolves to go to Africa and capture elephants. Centering on the resistance against a Korean grocer known as the "Emperor" and mirroring the protagonist's ancestors' role in a peasant revolt, it sees Takashi sleep with the wife of Mitsu, whose friend had earlier committed the title action by hanging himself after sticking a cucumber into his anus. Featuring a mentally challenged child, this is, FTP, which novel by Oe Kenzaburo?
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One character in this novel is greatly affected by a photograph in a Life coffee-table book in which she is on her way home from school with Lydia, who is carrying her bag. That character criticizes the title character for abandoning his lover Ellen, after which he takes control of the truck that had been given to another character for his 40th birthday. That character is additionally maddened by Daniel, who, after teaching the title character how to drive the truck, steals his gun while the others are gathered around a music box. The children, Gina, Victor, and Royce, easily adjust to their new life, while in the end one of their parents abandons them to run after a helicopter, hoping to escape the racial violence that originally forced the Smales family to join the village of their servant, the title character. For 10 points name this novel set in revolution-torn South Africa by Nadine Gordimer.
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One character keeps her mother Nivea's decapitated head in a hatbox and later predicts the earthquake that destroys Tres Marias. Another character befriends Transito Soto at the Red Lantern brothel and has twin boys, Jaime and Nicolas. After becoming pregnant, Blanca is forced to marry Jean de Satigny, but she returns to her lover Pedro Tecero after the birth of her daughter Alba. Alba is later arrested and tortured by Esteban Garcia, but the ghost of her grandmother Clara helps her endure the torture. Telling the story of Esteban and his clairvoyant wife Clara, FTP, name this novel about the Trueba family by Isabel Allende.
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One literary character with this first name recognizes her companion in a portrait of her ancestor, the Countess Millarca Karnstein. Another character with this first name is the wife of the title character in Lord Byron's Beppo. The object of the title vampire's desires in le Fanu's Carmilla shares this first name with a woman who grew up at Avilion with her sister Iris and drove her car off a cliff after World War II, as reported at the beginning of Atwood's The Blind Assassin. One character of this name comes out of her shell after kissing Jim, the "gentleman caller," and another literary character of this name was the subject of the poetry collection called Song Book, or Il Canzoniere. FTP give the name shared by Tom's sister in The Glass Menagerie and the object of Petrarch's affection.
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One member of this family is a carpenter turned politician named John whose son, also named John, participates in a murder with Johannes Pafuri. Another is defended by Mr. Carmichael and in the end is hanged for his role in that same murder. Gertrude is a prostitute who moves in with Mrs. Lithebe when her father arrives, urged on by a letter sent by Reverend Theophilus, but refuses to return to Ixopo. Arthur Jarvis was murdered by Absalom, the son of Stephen, a pastor who travels to Johannesburg in order to reclaim his family. FTP, name this family central to Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country.
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One of the protagonists of this novel sees an improbable advertisement for "Scissors: for the man of action, satisfaction." That protagonist becomes involved with the political activist Zeeny Vikal after losing his role on the TV show The Aliens. Another character disguises himself as Martin de la Cruz, the late husband of Rosa Diamond, and later kills his lover Alleluia Cone by throwing her from a high-rise roof. In the novel's even-numbered chapters, Abu Simbel exhorts the prophet Mahound to uphold the worship of three goddesses, but Mahound revokes the deal when he removes the titular section from the Quran. FTP, name this Salman Rushdie novel which begins with Gabreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha surviving a plane crash over the English Channel.
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One of this author's works begins with a series of "letters to the editor" decrying the exploits of a group of juvenile thieves. In another work, the Nobel Laureate James Levensen hires Fausto Pena to research the writer Pedro Archanjo, who leads the titular university. In another novel the businessman Mirko Stefano tries to get Ascanio elected mayor so he can extract titanium dioxide from a town, while the title character of that novel seduces her own nephew Ricardo. In addition to writing the aforementioned Captains of the Sands, Tent of Miracles and Tieta, the Goat Girl, this author created the character of Dionisia, who helps conjure the spirit of the dead gambler Vadinho, as well as Manuel of the Jaguars who struggles with Mudinho Falcao for political control of Ilheus. For 10 points, name this author, who wrote about Nacib the Arab's love for the titular girl in Gabriela, Clove, and Cinnamon.
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One small section of this work features five prayers addressed to different parts of the day. Including the Nirangistan fragments, one set of twenty-one poems in it is dedicated to various yazatas, or angels, and ancient heroes, while the Siroza identifies the gods who preside over the thirty days of the month. In it, the Vendidad describes construction of the Towers of Silence and offers a dualistic account of creation. Its core is a set of seventeen hymns that includes the Ahunavaiti and Ushtavaiti, the Gathas, thought to be the words of the prophet who began evangelizing Iran around 600 BCE. For 10 points, name this Zoraoastrian text.
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One work by this man opens by describing "seafarers" who "tell of the Eastern isle of bliss." In another poem by this man, the sounds of a flute on a spring night inspire recollections of the gardens of home. In a third work, he noted that he was glad to "make the moon and my shadow into friends." The addressee of another of his works went to "the river of swirling eddies" when the title figure was sixteen, and he asked "Which was the real-the butterfly or the man?" in "Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly." Mahler adapted his Chinese Flute into Das Lied von der Erde. For 10 points, name this Tang Dynasty poet of "The River Merchant's Wife," a close friend to fellow poet Du Fu.
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One writer from this country created an artist whose crowning achievement, a painting titled Scumscape, is censored and confiscated. Another created the fictional country of Shavi and wrote of The Joys of Motherhood. Another "bemoaned the death of a great dream" in his "Elegy for Alto", written a year before his murder by the Gowon Military. A fourth published his collection of prison notes, The Man Died, in addition to Kongi's Harvest and The Lion and the Jewel, and the best-known author from this country is responsible for Anthills of the Savannah and No Longer at Ease. FTP, identify this home of Christopher Okigbo, Wole Soyinka, and Chinua Achebe, the capital of which is Lagos.
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Perhaps in anticipation of his death, this author posed in photographs as a shipwrecked sailor and St. Sebastian shot dead with arrows. Author of the dramas The Moon Like a Drawn Bow and My Friend Hitler, he is more famous for his novels, such as 1950's Thirst for Love. Among his best works were the novels Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and Five Signs of a God's Decay, which made up the tetralogy The Sea of Fertility. Famous for committing seppuku in 1970, FTP, identify this Japanese writer most famous for The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
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Poseidon laments the destruction of the wall that he and Apollo fashioned and ponders the fate of Polyxena. Hecuba awakes and curses Helen, but a messenger brings even more dire information. Cassandra is to be the bride of Agamemnon, Andromache the prize of Pyrrhus, and Hecuba herself will be the slave of the hated Odysseus. These calamitous events transpire in, FTP, what play by Euripides?
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She won an Obie for an adaptation of Brecht's Mother Courage & Her Children. Other works include From Okra to Greens: A Different Love Story, Ridin' the Moon in Texas, and A Daughter's Geography andthe novels Liliane, Betsy Brown and Sassafras, Cypress, & Indigo but is best known for a performance piece she called a "choreopoem." FTP name the author of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.
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She wrote an elegy, "North Haven," for Robert Lowell, whose admiration of her included the dedication of his poem, "Skunk Hour." Living in such places as Nova Scotia, France, Mexico, and Key West, her travels are reflected in book titles such as North and South and Geography III. For ten points, name this poet who wrote poems such as "Crusoe in England," "In the Waiting Room," "At the Fishhouses," and "Questions of Travel."
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Six of them, including "When I bring you colored toys" and "Light my light" were set by composer John Alden Carpenter to music. This collection of poems centers on the concept of Jivandevata, or "Lord of my life," and most of its contents are dedicated to reuniting the poet with a deity. It begins with the line "Thou has made me endless, such is thy pleasure." With an introduction by W. B. Yeats, this work helped earn its author the 1913 Noble Prize for literature. FTP, identify this collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore, whose name means "Song Offerings."
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Stories in this collection include "Sexy" about infidelity and "This Blessed House" about a newlywed couple who find Catholic relics throughout their home. The title story was first published in the New Yorker and concerns a an American family who goes back to India, where on a tour of the Sun Temple at Konarak Mrs. Das revelas her family's secrets to their smitten guide Mr. Kapasi. FTP identify this story collection, winner of the 2000 Pulitizer Prize for fiction, the first book by Jhumpa Lahiri.
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Swedish author Lars Gustafsson wrote a novel about the death of someone associated with these things, while in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day, Tara abandons Bim after an encounter with them. In Annie Allen, Gwendolyn Brooks longs to return to a life with them "in the stomach," while in a story by Raymond Carver, Mel wants to use them to kill Marjorie. In "The People, Yes," Carl Sandburg tells of a man who herds them across the Rockies. Alexander Pope uses them to represent the monarchy in An Essay on Man, and Oliver Goldsmith published a periodical named for one of them. John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem about "telling" these creatures, while "Private Vices" and "Public Benefits" were discussed in Bernard de Mandeville's Fable of them. For 10 points, name these curved yellow insects that buzz and make honey.
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The Dead Man and the Dead Woman are invited by Aroni to appear at the Gathering of the Tribes in this man's A Dance of the Forests, and his other works include the chaotic Requiem for a Futurologist. He wrote poems based on Gulliver's Travels, Ulysses, and Hamlet in his collection A Shuttle in the Crypt, produced during the same prison stay as his memoir The Man Died. One work by this man describes the love triangle between Lakunle, Baroka, and Sidi, while in another, Simon Pilkings orders Sergeant Amusa to prevent the ritual suicide of Elesin Oba. For 10 points, identify this Nigerian playwright, the author of The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King's Horseman.
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The Secret Miracle details a writer's last days under a Nazi death sentence. "The Form of the Sword" tells of an Irish expatriate and the scar on his face. "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote" explains how an identical version of Quixote is superior to Cervantes' original. "The Babylon Lottery" tells the history of a society ruled by a random, invisible, and god-like Company. The writer of these works once remarked that "not granting me the Nobel Prize has become a Scandinavian tradition since I was born--August 24, 1899." FTP name this Argentine.
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The chapters of this novel are separated by the enigmatic quotations of Reverend Henry Callaway. After the main character is forced to ride coach on a plane and the hand of a teenage girl brushes against his thigh, he fondles her at length for the rest of the flight. The book ends with a procession to rebury an unknown dead man found in a field, with whom Solomon identifies after being beaten. Other characters include Bismillah, who is part of a family of Indian shopkeepers, and Jacobus, a crafty black overseer, but the main focus is on Mehring, a wealthy farm owner with a sense of racial superiority. FTP, name this novel by Nadine Gordimer whose title suggests a figure who loves the environment.
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The dramatist in residence at the Royal Court Theater during the late 1950's, his prison experiences were commemorated in The Man Died. Also author of poetic volumes such as A Shuttle in the Crypt, he is also noted for his novel, The Interpreters and as the founder of both the Orisun Theater Company and the group known as the 1960 Masks. With his serious plays including Requiem for a Futurologist, Madmen and Specialists, The Swampdwellers, and Kongi's Harvest, he has also written the comedic Brother Jero series. FTP, name this Nigerian playwright and author of The Lion and the Jewel.
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The flashback that opens the novel follows a clash that begins with the murder of a village messenger and ends when Captain Winterbottom comes and destroys all the guns. The title character, who is charged with overseeing such rituals as the Feast of the Pumpkin Leaves and the New Yam Festival, wants to get on the good side of the white men, sending his son to the missionary John Goodcountry, who tells Oduche to kill the sacred python of Umuaro, the Igbo village where the novel is set. FTP, name this novel about Ezulu, the titular priest of Ulu, a work by Chinua Achebe.
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The founder of a group of poets known as the Catastrophists in the 1930s, he served with distinction as an anti-Nazi resistance fighter during World War II, Though a socialist, he defected to the West while serving as a diplomat in France after the war, eventually emigrating to the United States to teach at Berkeley. FTP, name this Polish author of The Captive Mind and recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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The introduction to this work quotes a doctor who says "to read one line of [its author] is to forget all the troubles of the world." In one section of this work, a prisoner forges a chain to hold the world captive, but ends up being bound by it instead. Another section describes a place "on the seashore of endless worlds" where "children meet," while yet another section addresses "world-filling," "eye-kissing," "heart-sweetening" light. Beginning with a poem about a "little flute" which "breathed through it melodies eternally new," this collection includes poems previously published in Nobeiddo, and also contains a poem about a place "where the mind is without fear." Featuring an laudatory introduction by William Butler Yeats, FTP, name this 1913 poetry collection whose name translates as "Song Offerings," a work by Rabindranath Tagore.
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The main character of this novel is a brutal miner who strikes it rich but loses his beautiful fiancee Rosa when she accidentally drinks poison. After fathering an illegitimate son with his servant girl Pancha he marries Rosa's clairvoyant sister Clara. Meanwhile their daughter Blanca and twin sons Jaime and Nicoalas are shattered by Clara's death. The patriarch then pours all his affection into Alba, whom Clara's ghost protects from the military coup and the brutality of Esteban Garcia. Such are some of the adventures of Esteban Trueba in, FTP, what novel, perhaps the best known of Isabel Allende?
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The naming of Yuan-chan as an Imperial Consort brings great pride to the family in the beginning of this work, and her later death begins the clan's fall from favor. Early versions of the novel, featuring 80 chapters, were hand copied with commentary by Red Inkstone. Compassion Spring, Pervading Fragrance, and Bright Design are serving maids of the protagonist, who is tricked by the Chia family, including Madame Wang and the Lady Dowager, into agreeing to marry Pao-Chai, after which Tai-yu, or Black Jade, dies. Pao-yu is born with a mystical jade piece in his mouth at the beginning of, FTP, which Qing dynasty classic, written by Cao Xueqin?
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The narrator of this novel contracted an STD from the girl from the toy factory, whom he met after stabbing a fellow student. Its author wrote a short story sequel to it about the "trial" of it. One character in this work, who often speaks longingly of the south, has a morning ritual in which he assumes an undignified posture to medicate his hemorrhoids. That character, Minami, is beaten with a hoe early in this novel after trying to escape. The narrator's brother runs off and probably dies after Minami kills the dog he named Leo, whose digging had unearthed diseased corpses that infected the boys after the villagers abandoned them. FTP, name this novel in which a group of juvenile offenders are confined to a remote, plague-stricken village, a work by Kenzaburo Oe.
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The protagonist of this novel describes one woman he encounters as a "struggling wild animal" who "suddenly turns docile" upon his touch. In chapter 72 of this novel, the author declares, "This isn't a novel!" because "A novel must have a complete story." The protagonist encounters a troupe of falsetto singers working in a quarry who "take their frustration out on the rocks" because they have no women. Images that affect the protagonist include "ponds with floating duckweed" and "arched stone bridges," which he sees on a journey to a place he heard about on a train. The women the protagonist encounters are all referred to as "she," and the perspective of the protagonist oscillates between "I" and "You." Thinking he has cancer, the protagonist sets out to find the possibly mythical titular locale, starting in Beijing. For 10 points name this novel by Gao Xinjian.
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This author asserted "the air is a spongy body / a promiscuous faceless being" in "The Balcony" and asked "Do I believe in man / or in the stars?" in another poem. The speaker comments, "I travel my way through the body of sound" in a poem framed by the image of "a fountain of crystal, a poplar of water". This author wrote about "racing among my thoughts in the lighted stars" in the poem "Vrindaban," which was written contemporaneously with Eastern Slope and Eagle or Sun?. He analyzed the pacuchos in a collection, which includes "The Day of the Dead" and "The Conquest of Colonialism", and another poem is structured around the Aztec calendar. For 10 points, name this author of "Sunstone" who discussed Mexican culture in The Labyrinth of Solitude.
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This character is unable to return the amorous advances of his interlocutor, a "dung goddess," who wishes to get his "other pencil to work." Though his penis survived an attempt on it by electric shock while he was himself a dog in the CUTIA, he lied about his virility to avoid having sex with his wife, so his testicles were fried and fed to dogs, "drainage below." He gained a tonsure when an abusive history teacher ripped-out some of his hair and lost his psychic powers due to "drainage above," a sinus operation. This founder of the MCC participates in a love triangle with Shiva and Parvati the Witch. His mother Anita died giving birth to him at midnight, August 15, 1947. FTP, name this main character of Rushdie's Midnight's Children.
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This character tells his son stories about how "he obtained his first human head" to prevent him from becoming an agbala. After fasting for two days, this character is brought food by his daughter Ezinma, who becomes sick before he attends a council of spirits. During a year marked by the arrival of locusts, he violates a decree of the Oracle by killing Ikemefuna. This character is exiled for seven years for accidentally killing the son of Ezeudu, and returns to discover that his son Nwoye has converted. He commits suicide after burning down a church in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the colonial leadership of Umuofia. For 10 points, name this protagonist of Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart.
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This collection totaled 103 poems, of which 17 appeared in the later collection Garland of Songs. It was published largely due to the encouragement of the painter William Rothenstein, to whom several of the pieces are dedicated. It quickly gained the admiration of Ezra Pound and Andre Gide due largely to the influence of Rothenstein's friend, W.B. Yeats, who in his glowing introduction to the collection discusses the author with a doctor from Bengal. FTP, what is this 1911 collection which earned the attention of Europe and a Nobel Prize for Rabindranath Tagore?
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This woman's maid, Natasha, turns her amorous neighbor Nikolay Ivanovich into a pig using a magic cream. Though this woman is married to a wealthy man, she longs to leave him for her lover, who she met at the Kremlin wall. Her adventures include presiding over a Satanic ball and trashing the apartment of Latunsky, a critic who led the attack against her lover's book about Pontius Pilate. FTP, identify this woman, whose name is paired with "Master" in a Bulgakov work.
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This work consists of two sections narrated by an unnamed traveller and then three selections from what is ostensibly the title character's journal. In a scathing preface, the author writes that the work "is certainly a portrait, but not of a single person. It is a portrait of the vices of our whole generation in their ultimate development. You will say that no man can be so bad, and I will ask you why, after accepting all the villains of tragedy and romance, you refuse to believe in Pechorin." FTP, name this 1840 novel by Mikhail Lermontov.
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With three sections, it includes "A Catalog of Meters," a list of 102 examples known by its author, and "The Language of Poetry," which deals, in part, with kennings. The third section is "The Beguiling of Gylfi," a dialogue in which a Swedish king is told the myths of the beginning and end of the world and the exploits of the gods, in a visit to Asgard. For ten points, name this Scandinavian literary work, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturleson.
The Blood Knot
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The Book of Joshua or Sefer Yehoshua
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The Book of Nehemiah [or Nehemias]
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The Cairo Trilogy or Al Thulathiyya ( prompt on Palace Walk (al-Qasrayn) before the asterisk)
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The Cherry Orchard
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The Good Earth
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V.S. Naipaul
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the King James Bible [prompt on Authorized Bible]
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"To His Coy Mistress"
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Mishima Yukio [accept in either order]
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A Grain of Wheat
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Agamemnon
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Aime Cesaire
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Naguib Mahfouz
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Offred
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Okonkwo
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One Hundred Years of Solitude
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Pablo Neruda (or Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basualto)
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Alan Paton
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Alan Stewart Paton
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Alexander Blok
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Alice Ann Munro (or Alice Ann Laidlaw, I guess)
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Alice Munro
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Amos Tutuola
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Anacreon
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Anton Chekhov
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Apocolocyntosis divi Claudii or The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius
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Argentina
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Ariel
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Aristophanes
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Arrow of God
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Ars Amatoria or The Art of Love
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Ars Poetica
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Athol Fugard
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Bacchides or The Bacchis Sisters or The Wild, Wild, Women (accept equivalents)
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Canto General [or General Song]
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Carlos Fuentes
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Catullus
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China [or People's Republic of China]
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Paulo Coehlo
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Dream of the Red Chamber [or A Dream of Red Mansions or Story of the Stone or Honglou Meng; accept clear knowledge equivalents]
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Endo Shusaku
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Federico Garcia Lorca
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Frantz Fanon
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Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov
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Gabriela Mistral (accept Lucila Godoy Alcayaga before it is mentioned)
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Gabriela Mistral or Lucilla Godoy Alcayaga
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Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon or Gabriela, cravo e canela
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Gabriela, Clove, and Cinnamon
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Gaius Petronius Arbiter
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Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
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Gaius Valerius Catullus
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Gao Xingjian
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Germania
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Gilgamesh
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Gitanjali
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Gitanjali [accept Song Offerings before mentioned]
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Gitanjali, Song Offerings
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Gorgias the Nihilist of Leontini
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Heartbreak Tango or Boquitas Pintadas
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Helen
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Henry
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Hernando de Soto
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Hesiodos (or Hesiodus)
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Interpreter of Maladies
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Isaac Babel
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Isabel Allende
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Isabel Allende Llona
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Japan [or Nihon-koku; or Nippon-koku]
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Japan [or Nippon-koku; or Nihon-koku]
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Jean Rhys
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Jesus Christ (accept either name)
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Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
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John Maxwell Coetzee
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Jokes (accept Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious; for that matter, accept Der Witz or even Der Witz und Seine Beziehung Zum Unbewussten)
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Jones
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Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (YO-suh)
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Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa [YO-suh] (prompt on partial last name)
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Jose Donoso
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Jose MartÃ
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José Julián Martí Pérez
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July's People
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Jun'ichiro Tanizaki
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Junichiro Tanizaki
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Junichiro Tanizaki [accept in either order]
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Kafka on the Shore
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Kamala Markandaya
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Katsushika Hokusai
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Kawabata Yasunari
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Kazuo Ishiguro
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Kazuo Ishiguro [accept names in either order]
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Kazuo Ishiguro [or Ishiguro Kazuo]
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Kebra Nagast or The Book of the Glory of Kings
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Kenzaburo Oe [accept in either order]
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Kiran Desai [prompt on Desai]
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Kobo Abe [or Kimifusa Abe]
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Kumalo
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Labyrinth of Solitude or El Laberinto de Soledad
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Levi
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Li Po [accept Li Bai, Li Bo, or Li Tai-bo; might as well accept Rihaku too]
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Libation Bearers or Choephoroi
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Life is a Dream [accept La Vida es Sueño]
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Life is a Dream or La Vida Es Sueño
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Love in the Time of Cholera
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Love in the Time of Cholera or El amor en los tiempos del cólera
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Lucius Apuleius
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Macondo
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Maksim Gorky or Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov
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Manuel Puig
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Margarita Nikolayevna
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Mario Vargas Llosa
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Master Harold...and the Boys
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Matsuo Basho or Munefusa
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Maxim Gorky
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Meditations or Meditationes
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Memories of My Melancholy Whores or Memoria de Mis Putas Tristes
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Midaq Alley or Zuqaq al Midaq
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Miguel Asturias
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Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo
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Mikhail Bulgakov
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Mishima Yukio
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"Rashomon"
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"The Library of Babel" or "La Biblioteca de Babel"
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Born a slave, this protagonist is the victim of an arranged marriage to a "seven inch dwarf." She unsuccessfully attempts to woo her brother-in-law and at the end of the novel he kills her to avenge his brother. Unable to conceive, she becomes jealous of Vase's child and arranges a cat attack that leads to the child's death. Most infamously a nymphomaniac who was noted for her talent at p'in hsiao, literally "tasting the flute," FTP, name this protagonist of the erotic work the Plum and the Golden Vase, for whom Clement Egerton named his 1939 translation.
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Characters include a Chorus of Needy Agriculturists, a Priest of Zeus, an Informer, a Good Man, Poverty, Chremylus and Cario. Justice briefly comes to the world after the title character's blindness is cured. FTP, name this play about the god of wealth, the only extent play from the Middle Comedy period of Aristophanes [ar-is-TOF-an-eez].
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Gerardo Escobar has car trouble, and Doctor Miranda gives him a ride home where Pualina Escobar awaits Gerardo's return. Gerardo had been involved in a revolutionary newspaper during the old regime, and Paulina had been kidnapped and tortured in an attempt to catch Gerardo. Paulina is convinced that Doctor Miranda is the Schubert loving torturer and rapist from her past so she kidnaps him and tries to get him to confess in, FTP, name this play by Ariel Dorfman that takes its name from Schubert's 14th string quartet.
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Headmaster Michael and Nancy attempt to modernize a rural village run by a traditional priest in this man's short story "Dead Men's Path." He only wrote two volumes of stories, The Sacrificial Egg and Girls at War, while his sole collection of poetry was entitled Beware. He is better known for his novels, whose protagonists include the writer-slash-journalist Ikem and the chief priest of Ulu, Ezeulu. Those novels, Anthills of the Savannah and Arrow of God, take a backseat to this man's two novels about a hunter and his civil servant son. FTP name this author of an influential essay on race in Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the novels No Longer at Ease and Things Fall Apart.
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It begins in Scythia, in a locale characterized as "the world's limit? an untrodden desolation." The title character doesn't speak until after Kratus and Bia, or Might and Violence, have left, soon after which he is visited by a Chorus of Ocean Nymphs, who like Hephaestus sympathize with the title character. It is to Oceanus that the title character recounts his tale, beginning with the war between the Gods and Titans. FTP, name this Aeschylus play about the tortured Titan whose foresight helped him give hope and fire to Man.
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Lasus, Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pindar wrote examples of this poetry, and Arion of Lesbos probably developed it into an artistic composition to be sung by a chorus around an altar. Also written in honor of Apollo, its subject matter later was extended to the exploits of heroes. Many modern scholars agree with Aristotle that tragedy grew out of, FTP, what type of lyric poetry sung in honor of the god Dionysus?
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Produced at the peak of the Peloponnesian War, it is the only one of the author's major works that makes no reference at all to contemporary political events. In it, Euelpides [yoo-EL-pi-dees] and Pisthereus [pis-THEE-ri-us] leave Athens because they are disgusted with its long war, corrupt politicians and backlogged courts. After finding the mythical king Tereus, they form a pact with the title animals to build a new city ruled by Makedo [mu-KAY-do]. For 10 points name this 414 BCE Aristophanes comedy that features Cloud-Cuckoo-Land.
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The Opus 19 of Hugh Wood is a song cycle which sets seven of these to music, including "In the hot depth of this summer" and "Snared by the dying light." In the ninth of them the speaker, "drunk with pines and long kisses," finds that his lover's parallel body yields to his arms like a fish infinitely fastened to his soul. The sixteenth is a paraphrase of a poem from Tagore's The Gardener, while the first poem in this collection by a twenty-year-old poet celebrates the "goblets of the breast" and the "eyes of absence" of the body of his woman. In 1955, they were translated into English by Patrick Bowles and Christopher Logue, and they have recently been translated again by W. S. Merwin. The last of them shows a notable change in mood, as the poet laments the "hour of departure." FTP, identify this work published in 1924, the first volume of poetry by Pablo Neruda.
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Welsh author Rhys Hughes has recently published a book inspired by a series this man wrote for the newspaper The Critic. This man's protagonists include a secretary of a municipal library anxious to read a rare edition of The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, an Englishman with a vicious scar across his face, and a man given the appellation "Chronometer" before he dies from pulmonary failure. He was obsessed with the ideas of Heraclitus, as can be seen in a story about a man who worships a fire god and creates a man in his image, only to find out that he was created in a similar fashion. That story, "The Circular Ruins," is featured in a collection that also contains stories like "The Lottery of Babylon," "The Garden of the Forking Paths" and "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote." FTP, name this Argentinean writer of "The Library of Babel," El Aleph, and the collection Ficciones.
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When this writer encountered Andrew Yaphe cleaning his teeth in a restroom, he gave Andrew a frightened look and walked out. Doubling the Point is a book of his essays and other works include Age of Iron and The Master of St. Petersburg. His most recent work is a second installation of autobiography, Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II. His first novel, Dusklands, was followed by In the Heart of the Country, which is less famous than Waiting for the Barbarians. FTP, name this two-time winner of the Booker Prize for The Life and Times of Michael K and Disgrace.
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Yasin, the only son from the central characters's first marriage, seems aloof to the nationalistic Fahmy, who protests his country's occupation, and Kamal, who accepts it, while rejecting the * religion of his youth to become a writer. The central character never allows Amina to visit anyone but her mother, though he gradually releases his grip on the sisters, Aisha and Khadija. He is forced to watch as his grandchildren become communists and Islamic fundamentalists by the final novel, Sugar Street. FTP, name this set of novels focusing on Al-Sayyid Ahmad, taking place in an African capital, by Naguib Mahfouz.
Medea
sorceress or enchantress; from Medea who helped Jason and the Argonauts capture the Golden Fleece; known for her revenge against Jason when he spurned her for the princess of Corinth
"The Death of Ivan Ilyich" or "Smert Ivana Ilyicha"
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"The Garden of Forking Paths" [ accept El JardÃn de Senderos que se Bifurcan]
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"The Lady with the Dog" [or "Dama s sobachkoy" [accept reasonable variants for the translated title]
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"The True Story of Ah Q"
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A (or The) Hero of Our Time or Geroy nashevo vremeni
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A Bend in the River
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A Hero of Our Time (or Geroy nashego vremeni)
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Akutagawa Ryunosuke (accept Chokodo Shujin or Gaki)
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Alejo Carpentier
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Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter [accept La TÃa Julia y el Escribidor]
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Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter or El tia Julia y el escribidor
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Chronicle of a Death Foretold or Cronica de una muerte anunciada
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Chronicle of a Death Fortold (Cronica de una muerte anunciada)
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Cry, the Beloved Country
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Death and the King's Horseman
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Euripides
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Farid od-Din Attar
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Gabriel GarcÃa-Márquez
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Iceland
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Kenzaburo Oe
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Man's Fate (accept La Condition Humaine; accept Storm over Shanghai before it is read)
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Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
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Margaret Atwood
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Midnight's Children
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Miguel Angel Asturias
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Miles Gloriosus or The Braggart Soldier or The Swaggering Solider
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Murakami Haruki
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Natsume Soseki
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Oe Kenzaburo
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Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King or Oedipus Tyrannos
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Of Love and Other Demons or Del Amor y Otros Demonios
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On Heroes and Tombs[or Sobre héroes y tumbas]
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One Hundred Years of Solitude [accept Cien Anos de Soledad]
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Orestes
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Orlando [do not accept "Roland," as it does not apply to the first two clues]
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Outlaws of the Marsh or Shuihu zhuan (accept early All Men are Brothers and Water Margin)
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Outlaws of the Marsh or The Water Margin or All Men are Brothers or Shuihu Zhuan
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Pablo Neruda
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Palace Walk or Between the Palaces or al-Qasrayn (Prompt on "Cairo Trilogy" before it is said)
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Parallel Lives
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Patrick White
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Peace [or Eirene]
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Philip Michael Ondaatje
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Pierre Menard [accept either underlined part; accept "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quijote; or "Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote]
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Platero and I or Platero y Yo
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Plutus
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Poetics
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Prometheus Bound
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Prometheus Bound or Prometheus desmotes
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Prose Edda or the Younger Edda
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Pseudolus (prompt on "the cheat or "the deceitful slave" or equivalents)
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Publius Ovidius Naso
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Publius Ovidius Nasso
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R.U.R. [accept Rossum's Universal Robots]
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Rasipuram Krishnaswami. Narayan
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Record of a Journey to the West (accept early buzz of Monkey)
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Republic of South Africa
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Republic of Turkey [or Türkiye Cumhuriyeti]
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Robertson Davies
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Rohinton Mistry
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Ruben Dario
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Ruben Dario (Accept Felix Ruben Garcia-Sarmiento early)
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Rubén Dario
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Runaway Horses or Honba
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Ruth
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Ryunosuke Akutagawa [accept in either order]
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Salman Rushdie
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Sanskrit [or samskrta; or samskrtam]
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Satyricon [accept Satyrica]
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Scheherazade
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Sei Shonagon (SAY SHOW-na-gon but, of course, be lenient)
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Shakuntala
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The Arabian Nights' Entertainments [or The One Thousand and One Nights; or The Book of The Thousand Nights and One Night; or Alf Laylah wa Laylah]
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The Clouds (Nephelai)
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The Clouds [or Nephelai]
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The Conservationist
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The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away [or Waga Namida O Nuguitamu Hi]
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The Death of Artemio Cruz
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The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Smert Ivan Ilycha)
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The Dream of the Red Chamber (or The Story of the Stone, or A Dream of Red Mansions, or Hung lou meng, or Shih-t'ou chi)
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The Dream of the Red Chamber [or Red Chamber Dream; or A Dream of Red Mansions; or Hong Lou Meng]
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The Dream of the Red Chamber or Hung Lou Meng (accept Story of the Stone before the question ends)
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The Enchantress of Florence
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The Frogs [or Batrachoi]
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The Frogs or Batrachoi
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The Gaucho Martín Fierro
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The Ghost Sonata or Spoksonaten
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The Gift or Essai sur le don
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The Golden Ass (accept early buzz of Metamorphoses)
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The Golden Lotus (Chin P'ing Mei) or The Plum in the Golden Vase
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The History
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The House of Bernarda Alba
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The House of Bernarda Alba or La Casa de Bernarda Alba
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The House of the Spirits or La Casa de los Espiritus
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The House of the Spirits or La Casa de los Spiritos
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The House of the Spirits or La Casa de los espiritus
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The Inspector-General [Or The Government Inspector; or Revizor]
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The Knights
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The Knights or Hippeis
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The Library of Babel
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The Lower Depths
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The Lusiads or Os Lusiades
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The Makioka Sisters
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The Makioka Sisters (or Sasameyuki; accept Light Snow or equivalents)
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The Master of Go [or Meijin]
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The Narrow Road to the Deep North or Oku no Hosomichi
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The Nose
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The Old Gringo or Gringo viejo
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The Palm Wine Drinkard or The Palm Wine Drunkard
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The Palm-Wine Drinkard
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The Palm-Wine Drinkard (and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Dead's Town)
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The Peony Pavilion or Mudan ting
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The Pillow Book (accept "Makura no soshi")
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The Pillow Book (or: Makura no soshi)
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The Pillow Book or Makura no soshi
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The Sound of the Mountain
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Thousand Cranes or Sembazuru
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Timaeus
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Titus Maccius Plautus
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Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair or Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada
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Uncle Vanya or Dyadya Vanya
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Upanishads
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Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (note, in case anyone cares: Tehanu is the daughter of Kalessin, and The Dispossessed is set on Urras and Anarres; the rest should be fairly clear)
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V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) Naipaul
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V(idiadhar) S(urajprassad) Naipaul
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V. S. Naipaul
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V. S. Naipaul [accept SirVidiadhar Surajpraad Naipaul]
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Vainamoinen
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Victor Hugo
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Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
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Vikram Seth
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Virgil or Publius Vergilius Maro
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W. H. Auden
...
Wang Wei
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Where the Air is Clear or La Region Mas Transparente
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Wole Soyinka
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Works and Days
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Woyzeck
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Yasumari Kawabata
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Yasunari Kawabata
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Yasunari Kawabata (accept the names in any order)
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Yasunari Kawabata [accept names in either order]
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Zeami Motokiyo [accept Aridoshi before "this man" is read]
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hand bitten off by a crocodile [accept anything that includes "hand" or "arm", and "crocodile" and the suggestion that the animal ate something; do not accept alligator]
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monkeys [do not accept apes or other such answers]
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pianos [or player pianos before "Jelinek"]
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playing poker [accept obvious equivalents]
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sheep
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suras
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the Arab Republic of Egypt [accept Gumhuriyyat Misr al-Arabiyyah]
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the Bacchae or Bacchantes
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the Cairo Trilogy [accept Sugar Street before "Darwin"]
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the Nicomachean Ethics
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the Ramayana
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the Satires of Juvenal
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the Scriptwriter (accept early Pedro Camacho [either name])
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the Tale of the Heike or Heike Monogatari
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the Tao Te Ching or The Way of Life or The Way and Its Power or Book of the Tao and Its Power or other English variants that sound reasonable
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the Thebaid or Thebais
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the Tristia or Sorrows or Sorrows of an Exile
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the vampire
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the writing on the wall or Mene Mene Tekel Parsin (accept Belshazzar's feast before Belshazzar)
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threnody (accept "Treny" or "Laments" prior to the asterisk)
...
 the Apology [accept Apologia]
...
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A Robert Samuelson article says that this man is a "single-bullet" theorist who ignores cultural factors in his attempt to explain why the same programs work in the West and fail elsewhere. His work has focused on the unmeasured "dead" part of the economy, which has no legally protected way to be invested. He advocates that title rights be given to small assets held by the poor in such books as The Other Path. This former president of the Copper Exporting Countries Organization now leads the Institute for Liberty and Democracy. For 10 points, name this Peruvian author of The Mystery of Capital, who shares his name with an explorer.
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A character in this play adopts the name Astrea while working for a princess who assigns her the task of discovering the identity of a woman in a nobleman's locket. A soldier in this play recognizes his daughter, whom he thinks is a boy, through the sword he gave to her mother Violante. This play begins when a character traveling with Clarin in the mountains loses her horse, leading her to venture to a tower by foot. In this play Rosaura is raped by Astolfo, who makes an alliance with Estrella to succeed King Basilio as rulers of Poland. For 10 points, name this play by Pedro Calderon de la Barca about the imprisoned Prince Sigismund's realization that existence is an ephemeral illusion.20.
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A female author from this country wrote Miss Sophie's Diary. One author from this country wrote the collection Call to Arms, which included a work about a man who fears cannibals, A Madman's Diary, and one about a man who has a lot of "spiritual victories," The True Story of Ah Q. Another author from here wrote the absurdist plays Signal Alarm and Bus Stop and the novel Soul Mountain, for which he won the 2000 Nobel. This country's Four Great Classical Novels include one about 108 bandits and one about the pilgrimage to India of a monk. The origin of Outlaws of the Marsh and Journey to the West, for 10 points, identify this country of Lu Xun and Gao Xingjian.
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A light moment in this play occurs when one character puts on a green dress and starts shouting at the chickens to look at her. We learn that all the finches of Evaristo the Birdman were killed with a pestle by his wife, the servant Poncia. One woman is enraged when a picture of her fiancé is stolen, but it is soon found between the sheets of Martirio's bed. That fiancé, Pepe el Romano, courts the oldest and sleeps with the youngest of five sisters in this play, part of its author's Rural Trilogy. FTP, Adela breaks the cane symbolizing the authority of her mother, the title character, in this play by García Lorca.
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A man gives updates on his hometown in this work, which include the death of a man of shock from seeing a casket of wine broken, and another changing identities and sailing a wooden fence into the ocean. Near the end of this play, the protagonist suggests that certain objects can be sold as devices for measuring out laxatives in Egypt. A soothsayer in this work changes his prophecies in order to gain the best access to roasted meat, and at a point when men of all cities are required to cooperate in this play, the Lamachians only get in the others' way and the Megarians prove too feeble to accomplish anything. The plot in set into motion by a man who marries Opora after riding an enormous dung beetle to heaven, Trygaeus, and finds out that, as soon as an underling can retrieve a pestle, a mortar is going to be used to grind the cities of Greece. For 10 points, name this Aristophanes play in which the title figure is liberated from a pit of stones, despite the scorn of certain soldiers.
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A man with this first name outbids Jackson Wylie's Atlantic Bridge Company to build a bridge over the Barrata River in Rex Beach's "With Interest to Date." Another man of this first name accompanies Philip Sterling on a get-rich-quick land speculation scheme in The Gilded Age. In addition to the aforementioned Mr. Brierly, Verena Tarrant loves a man surnamed Burrage in The Bostonians with this first name. Authors with this middle name include the author of Two Years Before The Mast, while those with this first name include a man who told of his "Education." For 10 points, give this name, also used in the pseudonym of the writer of "The Gift of the Magi."
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A narrator of one of this man's novels encounters the Schneils, a pair of married linguists, while hosting the show The Tower of Babel. This author describes several men of the Machigengua tribe in that work, whose other narrator is a man with a large facial birthmark named Saul Zuratas. In another of his novels, the Poet loses his virginity to Golden Toes, and Porfirio Cava is caught stealing a chemistry test. That novel by this man sees the Slave killed by Jaguar, the leader of the Circle at the Leoncia Prado Academy. This author of The Storyteller and The Time of the Hero wrote a novel whose narrator works on soap operas at a radio station, where he meets Pedro Camacho. For 10 points, name this Peruvian author of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.
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A police officer in this work lends a shield so that a lamb may be sacrificed, but it is suggested that the title character should slaughter a jug of Thasian wine instead. After the setting of this work is compared to a large piece of wool, a lamp is broken over the head of the Commissioner. Myrrhine spurns Kinesias after several of the title character's followers leave to resume weaving at home. At the end of this play, the title character leaves the Acropolis with her handmaid Peace naked, convincing the Spartans and Athenians to end the Peloponnesian War. A sex strike is led by the title character of, FTP, which play by Aristophanes?
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A scene in this work involves the discovery of dead, naked banker named J.M.B. and a character's mistaken belief about the lengths to which his longtime friend would go to cover it up. Its main character pens an article ruminating on the need to put pets to sleep after he is told by his maid, Damiana, that his cat has become uncontrollable. Although its protagonist was once engaged to a woman named Ximena Ortiz, she leaves him after he spends one last night in the Barrio Chino. Set in the town of La Paz, its narrator, a newspaper critic, once boastful of his status as two time client of the year in the city's red light district, ends up falling in love for the first time with a girl 76 years younger than him at Rosa Cabarcas' brothel. For 10 points, identify this 2004 novella about a 90 year old writer's love for Delgadina, a work by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
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A seizure of guns follows the protagonist's failure to prevent territorial war with Okperi, and a crisis erupts when the Feast of the New Yam goes unobserved, though the Festival of the Pumpkin Leaves went off properly before Obika's death. Lesser characters representing two forms of Christianity include the orthodox John Goodcountry and the open-minded Moses Unuachukwu. The Christian convert Oduche attempts to kill the python worshipped by Ezidemili, who, along with commissioner Winterbottom, challenges the authority of the title character, Ezeulu, who is the leader of the Umuaro confederation and the chief priest devoted to Ulu. FTP, name this novel set during the implementation of indirect rule of Nigeria, written by Chinua Achebe.
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A stain on an ordinary glazed white cylindrical bowl, the discussion of which thinly masks the growing love of two characters for either other, provides the title to this novella's fourth chapter, "Her Mother's Lipstick." The work begins when the female protagonist and her mother arrive uninvited to a gathering after which the mother, twenty years the male protagonist's senior, seduces him on their way home. The work's climax occurs after the ordinary bowl is placed next to an ornamental one belonging to his father. That father was a philanderer and his mistresses included not only her mother but also the conniving Chikako, who now wishes to keep Fumiko and Mitani apart. FTP, what is this work centering on the Japanese Tea Ceremony by Yasunari Kawabata that takes its name from Yukiko's avian kerchief pattern?
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A wedding cake three stories tall, built as a replica of the Acropolis, is the centerpiece at the wedding of Jean de Satigny, who hopes to interest Blanca's family in the chinchilla business. Nicolas takes an interest in hot air balloons as his great-uncle Marcos had before he died, leaving only the puppy Barabbas for the del Valle family. In the end, the prostitute Transito Soto helps rescue the green-haired young woman Alba due to an early favor done by the family patriarch, after a violent coup overthrowing the newly established socialist government advocated by both Miguel and Pedro Tercero Garcia. FTP, identify this work whose titular structure is built for the clairvoyant Clara by her husband Esteban Trueba, the first novel of Isabel Allende.
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A woman obsesses over the newspapers used to wrap the baby born on her nursery floor in one of his stories, another of which takes place primarily at the After the Show Retreat. In addition to "Swaddling Clothes" and "After the Banquet" his stories include "Death in Midsummer" and one about the suicide of an army lieutenant and his wife. He also wrote dramas such as Twilight Sunflower and The Damask Drum, but better known are novels like The Sound of Waves, which followed Forbidden Colors and a novel about the conflicted student Kochan. Other characters created by this author include the priest Mizoguchi and Honda, the protagonist of his most famous tetralogy. FTP name this author of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sea of Fertility who committed seppuku on public television.
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According to Porphyrion, this work is addressed to L. Calpurnius Piso and his sons. The last in the author's second set of epistles, it begins with the metaphor of a painter who sets a human head on a body made from parts of different animals. It then advises to pick a subject that suits your powers, to not let a fourth character speak, to make all plays five acts in length, and to not present a comic subject in tragic meter. FTP, identify this treatise laying down the rules for writing poetry, written by Horace.
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After attending a lecture by this author, Leos Janacek composed a chorus for men's voices based on this author's work, titled "The Wandering Madman." Rued Langgaard composed a suite of ten hymns named for this author's major poetry collection, which also inspired songs for voice and piano by John Alden Carpenter such as "On the seashore of endless worlds." This author represents the present, along with Tolstoy and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "past" and "future," and advises Mahatma Gandhi in the second act of Philip Glass' opera Satyagraha. His compositions include the music and libretto of "Jana Gana Mana," adopted as India's national anthem. For 10 points, name this Bengali poet of Gitanjali.
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All texts we have from him come from a single codex, now lost, which is said to have been found in the 13th century plugging a wine barrel. Later in his life, he created a small-scale epic, The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, which followed his scathing epigrams aimed at Julius Caesar and Caesar's engineer, Mamurra. He is better known for the long narrative "Attis," and an elegy about his dead brother entitled "Ave atque vale," or "Hail and Farewell." Upon his return to Rome in 56 BC, he was devastated by the betrayal of Clodia Metelli, his one true love. FTP, name this Roman poet, for whom Clodia was probably the Lesbia to which he addressed many of his love lyrics.
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All the plays of this man were known only through the Palatine family of manuscripts until 1815, when Cardinal Mai discovered a palimpsest at the Ambrosian library in Milan, which includes parts of Vidularia and Rudens. Supposedly a former stagehand who composed his first works while a slave in a flour mill, his works are adaptations of the Greek new comedy and are noted for the use of situation comedy and lowbrow humor. FTP, name this Roman author of Pseudolus, Aululuria, and the Menaechmi.
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Along with Adolfo Bioy Casares, he wrote detective stories under the pseudonym Bustos Domecq, published as Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi. During his year in Spain, he joined the Ultra-ist movement, rebelling against the established Generation of '98. His early works concern the lives of scoundrels, as in A Universal History of Infamy. FTP, name this Argentine author of Dreamtigers and The Book of Imaginary Beings.
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Among the characters in this work are the forcefully cross-dressed Commissioner of Public Safety and the foolish clown Kinesias, though, perhaps the biggest fools are the Four Policemen who appear throughout. It is unclear whether the character of Ismenia is mute, but dialog is spoken by Lampito, Kleonike, and Myrrhine, all of whom are representatives at a meeting called by the title character. The play ends with appearance of the handmaid Peace, whose naked form quickly results in a truce. FTP, name this Aristophanes work in which the women of Athens withhold sexual favors to end the Peloponnesian War.
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An article written at Queen's Royal College, discussing his admiration for Maugham's Liza of Lambeth, inspired his novel about life in the slums, Miguel Street. Nonfiction works include Among the Believers and Beyond Belief, both about Islam, and A Turn in the South about Africa. While Mr. Stone and the Knight's Companion has a completely English setting, most of his works such as The Enigma of Arrival, Half a Life, and The Suffrage of Elvira constantly shift locales and present characters who strive to make a connection to the land. Characters like Jimmy Ahmed in Guerrillas or Ranjit Singh in Mimic Men thus mirror his own half-Hindi/ half-Trinidadian heritage. FTP, identify this author best known for A Bend in the River and A House for Mr. Biswas.
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An associate of Anaxagoras, this man's reputation for eccentricity stemmed from habits like sitting in caves staring at the sea. The son of Mnesarchus and Cleito, he used a patriotic theme in his play Heraclidae. The author of Hercules Furens and Cyclops, the only extant Greek satyr play, characteristics of his plays include an accelerated prologue that dispensed with exposition of previous action, seen in works like Ion, the Phoenecian Women, and the Bacchae. FTP, who was this author of Medea, The Trojan Women, and Iphigenia at Aulis, the youngest of the three great Athenian tragedians?
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An early interpretation of this text was created by Zhou Gong Dan. Tradition holds that Confucius wrote a commentary on this text called the Ten Wings. This text frequently uses the symbol of a dragon to represent actions taken by great men. The Duke of Kau wrote six paragraphs of commentary on each of the diagrams contained in this text, while King Wan wrote only one for each. Although interpretation of this text was traditionally done at first with straws, more modern interpretations frequently use coins. The arrangement of those diagrams was created by Fu-Hsi, and the first of them, the Khien, describes the proper time for action and waiting. For 10 points, name this ancient religious text often used for divinations, composed of sixty-four hexagrams.
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An opera version of this work was composed by Randolph Peters, with the libretto by the Canadian author Robertson Davies. Its most famous subsection is included in its entirety in Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean. The author's dislike of Christians is revealed in his depiction of the cruel baker's wife in Book 9. Contrasting the comic plot of the novel are depictions of the death of Socrates as well as the disfigurement of Thelyphron. Containing the story of Cupid and and Psyche, the work focus on Lucius' transformation into the title animal by drinking Pamphila's potion. FTP, name this work, also called The Metamorphoses, the most famed work of Apuleius [a-PEW-lee-us].
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At one point in this novel, a "complete gentleman" says "Do not follow unknown man's beauty" to the eventual wife of the narrator. He and she are married after the narrator finds Death and brings him to the town and a child is born from her thumb. They are then cast out to the wilderness because of the insufferable child, whom they abandon to three men named Drum, Dance, and Song. Among the locales visited by the couple are Wraith-Island, Unreturnable Heaven's Town, and Red-Town; they visit these in search of Deads' Town, where the title character intends to find his former servant and return him to his village. FTP, name this novel in which the narrator attempts to retrieve his tapster from the dead; the best-known work of Amos Tutuola.
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At one point in this play, two characters debate God's Law and listen to the song of the reapers out in the field. The First Act ends with an elderly person being locked up while yelling about love "by the shore of the sea!" It is prefaced by a note from the author identifying this work as a "photographic document" and opens with a servant reflecting on her thirty years of service to a household run with an iron fist. That character later discusses her first encounter with a man nicknamed "the Shortailed" in an effort to cheer up her mistresses. Completed two years after another work by the same author concerning motherhood, this work's final act sees the maid Poncia guess the truth about the youngest sister's doomed love affair with the fiance of her older sibling, Pepe el Romano. This work ends with a suicide and the oppressive title figure yelling "Silence" at her four remaining daughters, including Angustias and Magdelena. For 10 points, identify this tragedy subtitled "A Drama about Women in the Villages of Spain," a work by Frederico Garcia Lorca.
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At one point in this poem, a former titan named Adamastor prophesies that many of those following the protagonist will have to die for their daring. Later, a furious Bacchus incites Neptune to send storms to destroy the adventurer's ships, but they are saved by Venus. It opens with an assembly on Olympus called by Jove, who announces that the Fates have decreed that the men of Portugal, led by Vasco da Gama, should become the rulers of Asia, prompting a hazardous voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. FTP, what is this epic poem by Luis de Camoes?
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At one point in this poem, the speaker describes "ladies in flounced Brussels lace" sticking "their parasols into his face." Later, the poem records a dialogue between two people who are "denied the leaves" and "denied the sky." One of them notes that "spring is coming here," and mistakes the sound of "ice breaking" for people "smashing down the door." The speaker writes that he is "one massive, soundless scream" after he notes that he "seems to be a young boy in Byelostok" and that he "seems to be Dreyfuss." He also compares himself to Anne Frank, and at the end he hopes that the "Internationale" will "thunder when the last antisemite on earth is buried." FTP, name this poem about a place that "no monument stands over" and where a "thousand thousand" are buried, a work by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
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At one point in this work, a character is taken to a place under the command of John Thompson, Rira. After the town that serves as the setting of this novel regains its independence, Warui, Wambui, and Lieutenant Koiba prepare to unmask a traitor at a village festival. During the British occupation of Thabai, Karanja is promoted to village chief and impregnates the wife of one of the major characters. One character, Mugo, is a young farmer who betrays Kihika, which leads to his death. Another major character is taken to seven detention camps and is the husband of Mumbi. For 10 points, identify this novel about , Gikonyo, a prominent early work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o.
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At one point in this work, a man kills a musician after the latter slaps his mother. Later, Lone Dragon Mountain is assaulted and two of the main characters are dismembered during fighting against imperial forces, even though their earlier attack on the Liao Tartars had been successful. The central villain in this novel starts out as a street urchin, but he befriends government officials and becomes prime minister of the Song court. That villain, Gao Qiu, leads five military expeditions against a group of 108 men whose activities center in and around Mount Liang and who are led by Song Jiang. FTP, identify this classic Chinese novel about bandits living in a swamp.
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At one point in this work, an oath is sworn over a jug of Thracian wine after it is pointed out that sacrificing a sheep over a shield would be inappropriate. The main character comes up with a metaphor of Greece as a piece of wool that needs to be spun into yarn, and when the Commissioner casts aspersions on this idea, Kleonike empties a chamber pot over him. The chorus of old men tries to smoke out a group from their entrenched position at a site where Kinesias shows up with a neglected baby and an enlarged member. Ending with an agreement aided by the naked figure Peace, FTP name this Aristophanes work in which the title character convinces Greek women to withhold sex until the Peloponnesian War is ended.
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At one point in this work, one of the main characters is introuced to a man named Vronsky, which that character recognizes as a name out of Anna Karenina. The penultimate chapter of this work consists mostly of two letters, one from Hamburg and the other from Friedl Hening in Berlin, while the last chapter closes with a remark on a titular character's diarrhea. In this novel Katharina Kyrilenko sails for Germany on the Scharnhorst, while another character in this novel is known as "steamed curds" due to a mispronunciation of his name, and other foreign characters in this novel include the Stoltzes. A character in this work is known as Koi-san, and after her marriage to Okubata is delayed, that character takes up with Itakura, while another character's marriage prospects have been damaged by a blemish over her left eye. This novel concludes on the eve of a wedding, leaving Taeko next in line to wed after Yukkiko and Sachiko. For 10 points, name this Junichiro Tanizaki work about four female siblings.
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At one point the protagonist compares himself to a gadfly that stings a lazy horse, and at another point is accused of belief in a semi-divine, daemon spirit. The third section argues that death should not be feared, since it is either a peaceful sleep or another world filled with heroes from the past. The second part sees the protagonist propose that Athens punish him with free board at the public's expense for his crimes; earlier, Meletos was led into a series of contradictions, but nonetheless Meletos and his two fellow accusers are victorious. FTP, what is this Platonic dialogue concerning Socrates' defense against charges of sacrilege and corruption of the youth?
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At one point, it compares life and death to a mother's breasts; just as a child finds "consolation" in the left breast when taken away from the right breast, the poet knows he "shall love death" because he loves life. It ends with a salutation to God in which the author asks to voyage to his eternal home like a flock of homesick cranes. In an introduction addressed to William Rothenstein, another poet compared this book to the writing of Chaucer's forerunners or European saints. Most English translations of it contain poems from Naivedya, while many of the poems expound upon a personal relationship with the divine, or "Jivandevata." Meaning "Song Offerings," FTP, name this collection of poems, which became famous thanks to the introduction by William Butler Yeats, and which was the major reason for the award of the Nobel Prize to its author, Rabindranath Tagore.
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At one point, this character follows a priestess carrying his daughter to a cave in the middle of the night. This character's father is a flute player who is heavily in debt, and he gains fame for defeating an opponent nicknamed "the cat" in a wrestling match. This character beats his wife during the Peace Week, and is exiled from his village after his gun goes off and kills a youth during Ezeudu's funeral. This figure is disappointed in his son Nwoye and takes care of the boy Ikemefuna before killing him with a machete. For 10 points, name this yam-farming resident of Umuofia who fights against British colonization, the protagonist of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.
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At the International Monetary Conference, this man helped block James G. Blaine's bimetallism plan, and Blaine's work in the Pan-American Conference spurred this man to write the essay "Our America." He published his own translation of Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona and singled out "Ismaelillo" (eess-may-eh-LEE-oh) as his best literary effort. He published the Montecristi Manifesto scant weeks before his 1895 death at the Battle of Dos Ríos. The lyrics for "Guantanamera" came from the collection Versos Sencillos (sen-SEE-yos) written by, FTP, this poet and journalist known as the "apostle of Cuban independence."
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At the beginning of this novel, one character requests a shot of vitamin B to ward off sluggishness, and receives a phone call which is overheard by the gossipy O-haru. Another character gains acclaim for making traditional dolls, and performs a dance entitled "Snow". At the recital, she is photographed by Itakura, who later rescues her from a flood. Mrs. Itani suggests a series of marriage prospects for another of the main characters, who is finally engaged to Mimaki at the end of the novel. That character, Yukiko, prefers to stay with the Ashiya branch of the family, rather than with the main family, which moves to Tokyo from Osaka. Tsuruko, Sachiko, and Taeko are, for 10 points, the other titular characters of what novel by Junichiro Tanizaki?
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At the beginning of this work, a crippled poet comments on how the radio cannot drive him out of business, while another character is fired from the Ministry of Religious Endowments after writing letters in English. Another character requests the matchmaking services of the protagonist's mother, and Kirsha, the owner of a café, enjoys hashish and has numerous gay affairs. This novel's protagonist envies Jewish girls who work at factories, but she eventually agrees to a proposal delivered from a barber to her mother by a quack dentist. That barber promises to earn money by working for the British army, but Salim Alwan also proposes to marry the protagonist of this work, who is later lured into prostitution by Ibrahim Faraj. For 10 points, identify this novel wherein Abbas is murdered after he tries to bring Hamida out of prostitution, a work set in a backstreet by Naguib Mahfouz.
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At the beginning of this work, one character is asked "May you not hurt your enemy when he struck first?" To carry-out his mission, the protagonist plans to "assume the Parnassian dialect" and his former nurse, Cilissa, is sent to fetch the king without his bodyguards following the advice from the chorus that "it is the messenger who makes the bent word straight." Disguised as a Daulian from Phocis, the main character enters Argos with his friend Pylades and is told to "let Loxias touch [him]" following his murder of his mother and her lover. FTP name this work centering on the vengeance Orestes visits on Aegisthus and Clytemnestra; the second play of Aeschylus' Oresteia, whose title characters are a chorus of women bearing offerings to the grave of Agamemnon.
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At the end of this play the title character looks out on the universe, awhirl with manifold terrors, and prays to mother Earth for comfort. It opens on a barren peak in the Caucasus with two demonic servants of Zeus, Might and Violence, supervising Hephaestus, the blacksmith of Olympus. At various points in the play the title character is visited by Ocean and Io, whose descendant will free him. When asked of his imprisonment, he explains the role he and his mother, Themis, played in the fight between the Titans and Olympians. FTP, what is this Aeschylus play, about a Titan who saved mankind by giving them the secret of fire?
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At the end of this work, the main character's music teacher notes that he "reminds me more and more of that unfriendly homosexual," and among the bedtime stories told to the main character is the plot of Romeo and Juliet. The last chapter of this novel consists of a letter from Berto, whom the main character's mother married because of his looks. The main character is intrigued by a version of the life of Johann Strauss, The Great Waltz, which he writes about in the essay "The Movie I Liked Best." It is set in the town of Vallejos and centers on Jose Casals, nicknamed Toto, a cinema buff who particularly enjoys the movies of the title actress. FTP, identify this first novel of Manuel Puig.
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At the end, the antagonist is required to sell food made from dogs' asses while cursing at prostitutes. Although one character claims that he will be even crueler than the antagonist to win his office, it turns out that like most politicians, he never intended to fulfill his campaign promises, as the Sausage Seller instead rules fairly and brings a truce in the form of a beautiful maiden. The play was a thinly-veiled allegory, as the master's name means 'the people,' and the Steward from Paphlagonia represents the man who insulted an earlier play of the author. Cleon's insult of The Babylonians may have led to, for 10 points, what play by Aristophanes, named for some cavalry?
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At two points in this novel, the riddle "Nansen kills a Kitten" is discussed in relation to the moral quality of the protagonist. Formative events in the main character's childhood include the murder of Uiko, a meeting with Tayama Dosen, and the protagonist walking in on his mother cheating on his dying father. The rationalist Kashiwagi tempts the main character from his studies, and eventually his frustration with his own stammering speech and physical shortcomings causes Mizoguchi to lash out at the nearest object of beauty. FTP, name this novel based on the actual burning of the title structure in 1950, written by Yukio Mishima.
Doris Lessing
Author of Through the Tunnel
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Book 2, called Euterpe, tells how Cambyses becomes king and prepares to march against Egypt. Book 4 introduces Darius and tells how the Scythians outwitted him. Book 8 describes the Greeks' triumphant victory at Salamis. The quality of these accounts inspired Cicero to give the work's author the title "Father of History." FTP name this work by Herodotus.
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Early in his life, the protagonist of this novel sees a woman named Uiko shot by her lover, a deserter from the Japanese army. He later befriends a student named Kashiwagi who compares his own clubfoot to this character's stuttering. On a trip with Kashiwagi and two girls, he begins making out with one of the girls, but is interrupted by a vision of a building. To him, this building, the temple in which he is an acolyte, represents true beauty, and it dominates him throughout the book. Finally, after making love to a woman he once saw squeeze breast milk into her lover's tea, he burns it to the ground. FTP, name this novel by Yukio Mishima.
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Early in this work, a salesman arrives with a copy of the Arabian Nights for his cousin, the protagonist, and a new greyhound for his nephew, the protagonist's son. Another section describes a Madam's Yorkshire upbringing and the death of her brother in Canada, before the scene shifts to the boudoir of a Polish ***** named Louise. In Chapter 9 a young woman with black teeth performs the song "Snow," which reminds the main character of the first time he "worshipped a woman," a feeling he no longer has for his own wife. The next chapter sees the protagonist accompany his father-in-law and O-hisa to see Morning Glory Diary, one of many puppet plays attended over the course of this novel. A letter from Takanatsu reveals that Hiroshi knows about his mother's infidelity with Aso and the coming dissolution of Misako and Kaname's marriage in, for 10 points, what work by Junichiro Tanizaki.
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Fahmi is a nationalistic son, and Zaynab a modern daughter in law, in this novel, that tells the story of a patriarch, his wife, and their five children. The father is an authoritarian at home, but spends each night carousing in nightclubs. Meanwhile, Amina, is only allowed out of the house to visit her mother. Although first published in 1956, this story of Ahmad Abd 'al-Jawad was not available in English until 1990, two years after its author won the Nobel Prize. FTP, name this first novel of the Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz.
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Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds features a Pooka and a penniless fairy engaged in this activity, and in Leslie Marmon Silko's "Toe'osh," the narrator tells of how coyote lost his "proud, original" fur coat when doing it. In William Faulkner's "Was," Buck's freedom is attained after Buddy is successful at this activity, while Neil Simon's The Odd Couple opens with several characters participating in this activity. Tennessee Williams considered giving A Streetcar Named Desire a title concerning a night about this activity, in which Pablo, Steve, Mitch, and Stanley participate in the only titled scene of the play, while in another story, one character tells Tom Simson that when engaged in this activity, one doesn't "get tired, the luck gives in first." FTP, name this game, which John Oakhurst presumably played a lot in the title gambling town of a Bret Harte short story.
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He has 30 years, four months, and two days left to live, as he learned from an astrologer named Serapa. He refuses to own a mule unless it was sired by a wild ass, and he notably placed an order for mushroom spores from India. According to his will, Carion is to receive an apartment house and Philargyrus is to get a farm, while he asks his friend Habinnas to make the plot of his grave a hundred feet wide. When we last see him, he has ordered some trumpeters to play a funeral march, after which a fire brigade bursts in and allows some disgusted guests to slip away. He acquired the praenomen "Gaius" when he became a freedman, and he delights in drinking fine Falernian wine at a party which features his wife Fortunata and such guests as Ganymede and Encolpius. FTP, name this wealthy ex-slave who holds a lavish party in the Satyricon of Petronius.
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He has survived thirty-two wars, "fourteen attempts on his life, seventy-three ambushes, and a firing squad" and when he finally dies it is of old age while he is urinating. As his sons are assassinated, he has no heirs, but has many namesakes, the last of which is born with a pig's tail. For ten points, name this character, the son of Ursula and Arcadio, the first child born in Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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He has written about vegetarianism in Lives of the Animals, his childhood in Boyhood, and censorship in Giving Offense. In his more unequivocally fictional work, he has often drawn on other authors, such as Daniel Defoe in Foe, an adaptation of the Robinson Crusoe story, and Dostoyevsky in Master of Petersburg. His first success came with a novel about a government magistrate entitled Waiting for Barbarians, and he has followed that up with several acclaimed novels, including two award winners. FTP, name this South African author who won the Booker Prize for The Life and Times of Michael K. and his most recent novel, Disgrace.
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He is a wrestler and once overthrew The Cat. His kinsman Obereika tells him that he did not have to take part in the Mbaino boy's death. This was spoken to him after he dealt the deathblow to Ikemefuna, who was a good influence on his son Nwoye, later banished from the village because he converts to Christianity. After accidentally killing a man with an exploding gun, he is exiled for seven years, but upon his return he realizes the British have completely overrun the village of Umuofia. FTP, identify this Ibo warrior, the main character of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.
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He spent the last years of his life in Sicily, where he wrote a work about the founding of Syracuse, Women of Etna. In his first competition he lost to Pratinus and Choerilus, but the contest was so exciting that the theater benches collapsed under the weight of the spectators. He wrote 97 plays in all, the earliest surviving one of which depicts the flight to Argos of the fifty daughters of Danaus. In another of his plays, two brothers fight to the death before the walls of Thebes, while he sympathized with Queen Atossa in The Persians. FTP, name this first of Athens' great tragic dramatists, who wrote Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Bound, and the Oresteia.
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He told the story of Kaspar, Melchior and Baltazar in the poem "The Three Wise Kings." His most important early work includes such sonnets as "The Song of Gold" and "In Search of Pictures," but centers around the a suite of four poems called "The Lyrical Year." Though works like "The Motives of the Wolf" and "Triumphal March" use the lush imagery of the Parnassians, by 1905 he had embraced the future of his continent in Songs of Life and Hope. Other works from this period include his diatribe against the seizure of the Panama Canal, "To Roosevelt," and a Song for Argentina which is based on this Nicaraguan's time working in Buenos Aires as a reporter. FTP, name this writer of Prosas Profanas, an author whose 1888 collection Azul is a landmark of Modernismo.
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He tries to conceal one of his many affairs by only visiting his partner when the stars are in just the right alignment. He also adopts a girl with the premise of raising her as his own, though he did admit that he intended to later develop a physical relationship with the girl. He falls in love with a princess because of her beautiful zither music. One lady gets jealous at his many wives and transports her soul into the body of his main squeeze, Lady Aoi. FTP, name this titular character of the world's first great novel.
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He was a fanatical nationalist, and his writing's complete lack of Western influences emphasized that devotion. He focused on creating images rather than ideas, and his short story "The House of the Sleeping Beauties" exemplifies that unique style. His collections, such as Snow Country, The Sound of the Mountain, and Thousand Cranes all have dreamlike qualities and a succint style. FTP name this 1968 Nobel Prize for Literature recipient, the first Japanese author to win that award.
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He was accused of a conspiring to assassinate the emperor by Tigellinus, the commander of the emperor's guard. This followed his time as governor of Bithynia and first magistrate of Rome. Tacitus also relates that after being arrested, this man committed suicide by slitting his veins and then bandaging them to delay death. He is best known for a literary work that included the characters of Giton, Ascyltos, and the narrator, Encolpius, that was written during his time as director of elegance in Nero's court. FTP, name this writer, who introduced the loud-mouthed host Trimalchio in his masterpiece, the Satyricon.
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He was arrested for signing a manifesto denouncing Gerardo Machado y Morales. While in jail he completed his first novel, a narrative of the Afro-Cuban movement entitled Lord, Praised be Thou! The Haitian Revolution inspired his novel The Kingdom of This World, and in that work's preface he espoused the theme of his writings: "What is the whole history of the America but a chronicle of the marvelous-real?" The author of Explosion in the Cathedral, his most famous work was the novel The Lost Steps. FTP, identify this Cuban writer who coined the term "magical realism."
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He was born from a stone egg, and his bronze head and iron shoulders made him impossible to kill. Instead of being executed, he was burned in a furnace where the pills of immortality were refined, which led to his acquiring golden crystal eyes. Finally, he was imprisoned for five centuries beneath the Mountain of Five Fingers, from which he was freed by a wandering monk. His anger was provoked when he was offered the position of stablekeeper, after he had claimed a much higher office in defiance of Yu Huang Da Di, or the Great Emperor of Jade. FTP, name this creature, who accompanies Tripitaka in a novel by Wu Ch'eng-en, and gives his name to Arthur Waley's translation of Journey to the West.
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He was made a quaestor in 62 CE, the same year won a prize at the Neronian games for reciting a poem in praise of Nero. He was introduced to court life by his mentor Cornutus, though he fell out of favor with the emperor after the publication of his De incendio urbis. In 65 CE, he was obliged to commit suicide for taking part in Piso's conspiracy. FTP, name this Roman poet who wrote an epic about the war between Caesar and Pompey entitled De bellum civile.
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He was removed from his post as rector of the University of Salamanca when he opposed the government of Primo de Rivera, and was exiled to the Canary Islands. Then he was restored, but after expressing anti-Franco sentiment, he was placed under house arrest and died two months later. The death of his son early in life also plagued him, causing him to question the existence of God. Identify this Spanish author and philosopher, the leading member of the Generacion del 98 whose works, FTP, include Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho and Niebla.
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He was thrown out of Oxford after challenging a student who criticized his mustache to a duel. After serving as a subaltern in the Bombay Native Infantry, he learned Gujarati and Marathi before travelling in 1853, in disguise, to the forbidden cities of Mecca and Medina. He searched for the source of the Nile along with his partner, John Speke, although there is some controversy over who should be given credit for the discovery of Lake Tanganyika. FTP, name this man, perhaps best remembered today for his translations of the Kama Sutra and The Arabian Nights into English.
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He wrote about a girl on a train who throws some of the title fruit to three boys in his story "Tangerines," while he wrote about two battleships being repaired in "Three Windows." One of his works opens on the second floor of a bookstore, where the protagonist observes that "Life cannot compare to a single line of Baudelaire." That work, which consists of fifty-one brief aphoristic discussions of episodes in the author's life, is called A Fool's Life, while his other late works include the film script Temptation and the critical Literary, All Too Literary. He defended his use of the watakushi-shosetsu form in his non-fiction, and his stories include one about a painter who sees his daughter burnt in a carriage and a criminal who attempts to escape from the underworld on a spider's thread. For 10 points, name this author of "Hell Screen" and "The Nose," who described a woman stealing hair from corpses and a rape and murder that change depending on point of view in his "In a Grove" and "Rashomon."
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He wrote an autobiographical Apologia to defend himself from allegations that he had used magic to seduce his wife, Aemilia Pudentilla. Born in what is now Algeria, his philosophical works include the Aristotelian On the World and three books on Plato, the best known of which is On the God of Socrates, but he is better remembered for a fictional work. FTP, identify this second-century A.D. author, who included a long section on Cupid and Psyche in his Metamorphoses, better known as The Golden Ass.
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He wrote several philosophical works, such as The Book of Secrets, which expound on the religious ideas he developed in his youth while traveling through India and the Islamic territories. He is better known for his poetry, however, which includes such works as "Intoxicated by the Wine of Love" and "Looking for Your Own Face." Often cited as a chief inspiration by Rumi, his most famous work is an epic in which a Hoopoe instructs his fellow creatures with a series of allegorical fables until they reach the god-king Simurgh, who is revealed to be a mirror of themselves. FTP, name this 12th-century Sufi poet who took his pen name from his profession of herbalist and wrote The Conference of Birds.
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He wrote the Apology of Palamedes and Encomium on Helen and believed in three basic tenets: nothing exists, nothing which did exist could be known, and nothing which could be known could be communicated. Along with his own work, his name entitles a Platonic dialogue set at the house of Callicles, to which Socrates and Chaerephon go to debate with him and his student Polus. FTP, name this title character of a dialogue about the moral and artistic value of rhetoric.
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Headings of this work's sections include "A Lamp on Earth" and "The Sand Betrayed." The author praises political figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Joseph Stalin in "Let the Woodcutter Awaken" and Emiliano Zapata in "The Liberators". One section of this work describes the flora and fauna of the Pre-Colombian era, and other sections discuss mining and the Communist Party, while a section often published separately describes the poet's ascent to Incan ruins. It includes "The Earth's Name is Juan" and "The Heights of Machu Picchu." For 10 points, name this long poem by Pablo Neruda.
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His children included Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. While his father was living in Bethel, he had sex with his father's concubine, which would later cost him his birthright. At a pivotal movement in his life, he ordered his brothers to dig a pit, but while he was absent they cut a deal with some passing Ishmaelite traders, after which an item of clothing was soaked in the blood of a goat. His mother gave him his name to express her hope that the Lord had looked on her affliction, and that her husband would now love her, but after this man slept with Bilhah his father ceased to love him. FTP, name this eldest son of Leah and Jacob, who saved the life of his brother Joseph and made one heck of a sandwich.
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His critical works include The Perpetual Orgy, a study of Madame Bovary, and García Marquez: Story of a God-Killer. His story The Cubs depicts a teenager who gets castrated by accident, while a number of his early novels deal with the military, including Captain Pantoja (pan-TOE-ha) and the Special Service, Conversation in the Cathedral, and The Time of the Hero. FTP, name this Peruvian writer, best known for In Praise of the Stepmother, The War of the End of the World, and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.
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His early poems appeared in such collections as Look, Stranger! On This Island, and The Orators. After immigrating to America in the 1940s he published other works of verse, including The Quest, a sonnet sequence, and The Sea and the Mirror, a commentary on the Tempest, but it may be for individual works like his elegies on Freud and Yeats, and his rumination on the Spanish Civil War, "Spain 1937," that he is remembered. FTP, name this poet known for his stage collaborations with Christopher Isherwood, as well as his long poem "The Age of Anxiety."
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His first novel was burned at the Leoncio Prado Military School, which served as its setting. His essays include criticisms of Flaubert, Sartre, and Camus and the 1971 work Garcia Marquez: Story of a God-Killer. The jungle of his native country is the setting of his novel The Green House, and an accidentally castrated adolescent is portrayed in his short story "The Cubs." Other novels by this author include Captain Pantoja and the Special Service and Conversation in the Cathedral. FTP, identify this author of The Time of the Hero and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of Peru.
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His first play, The Butterfly's Evil Spell, closed after one night in 1920. His other early works include First Songs and Gypsy Ballads, and he wrote Poet in New York after moving there following an emotional collapse. FTP, name this poet born near Granada, best known for such plays as Yerma, Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba.
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His first published story was about a college student who works part-time killing dogs to be used in experiments. At the end of another of his stories, Clerk is cremated along with the black soldier who had been captured by the people of a village. In addition to "An Odd Job" and "Prize Stock," he has written a story about a fat man who nearly went mad after nearly being thrown to a polar bear, as well as a story about a man dying of liver cancer who likes to sing "Happy Days Are Here Again." In one of his novels, the protagonist's wife is driven to suicide by his homosexual adventures, after which he discovers the joy of ejaculating against young girls on the subway. In another of his novels, Bird nearly goes to Africa with his mistress before returning to the deformed baby whom he had tried to kill. Another novel was originally called Sorrow in the Year 1860, and depicts a young man who goes to the village of his youth after becoming the father of a retarded child. FTP, name this author of Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness, A Personal Matter, and The Silent Cry.
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His first three plays, including "The Banqueters" and "The Babylonians", were produced by Callistratus, probably because he was considered too young to handle it himself. Although little is known of his personal life, he is believed to have lived for a time on the island of Aegina, and was prosecuted by Cleon for mocking ambassadors from the Delian league. "Kokalos", a play written for his son Araros, is said to have started the "New Comedy". FTP, name this comedic playwright of Athens, author of "The Knights", "The Frogs", and "The Birds".
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His first two plays, No-Good Friday and Nongogo, were published in 1977, along with Dimetos. His The Island was developed in collaboration with the actors who played the leading roles, John Kani and Winston Ntshona. Hello and Goodbye, Boesman and Lena, and The Blood Knot form a trilogy dealing with family relationships in and around Port Elizabeth, his hometown and the setting of most of his plays. FTP, name this South African playwright, whose other works include Master Harold...and the Boys and Sizwe Bansi Is Dead.
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His involvement with Tokyo's S&M scene yielded the short stories Akuma and A Springtime Case. His Western influences prompted him to translate Lady Windermere's Fan into his native language, while the early short story "The Tattooer," reflects his love of Poe. He tells the story of Joji, who loves a European-looking waitress, in the novel Naomi, while his more traditional works include the sextet The Gourmet Club, Quicksand, and 1956's The Key. The author of Some Prefer Nettles, FTP, identify this Japanese author of Diary of a Mad Old Man and The Makioka Sisters.
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His literary study, The Traps of Faith, introduced the poetry of Juana Ines de la Cruz to the World, while the essay collection Conjunctions and Disjunctions considers the relationship between sex and religion, but his exploration of these subjects is better known in his poetry which includes such volumes as A Drift of Shadows and Salamandra. He also wrote a long poem to the planet Venus called Sun Stone and other works focusing on his nation's Indian heritage like Eagle or Sun and Luna Silvestre. FTP identify this Mexican author and nobel prize winner best known in America for his prose study The Labyrinth of Solitude.
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His minor works include the Vinay Pattrika, Krishna Gitavali, and Kavitavali. The most influential of this writer's twelve known works drew on the Adhyatma version of his main source and the Bhagavata-Purana. Flourishing in the city of Varanasi, his work is credited with displacing the Krishna cult there and in other areas, by introducing the bhakti of a certain other avatar of Vishnu. FTP, name this poet whose strongest legacy is the Ramcaritmanas, the Awadhi Hindi translation and revision of the Sanskrit Ramayana.
who is this groundbreaking Japanese novelist, the author of Norwegian Wood and A Wild Sheep Chase?
His nonfiction work Underground chronicles interviews with victims of the Tokyo subway terrorist attack, while several short stories are collected in The Elephant Vanishes. His novels The Sputnik Sweetheart, South of the Border, and West of the Sun, all display his trademark surrealism and whimsy. He won the Tanazaki Prize for his novel about a mental cryptographer with a civilization in his mind, The Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. For 10 points
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His paintings in ink have been the subject of over thirty international exhibitions. He also illustrates the covers of his own books, for which he is more famous. The publication of Signal Alarm, Bus Stop, and Wild Man all brought the displeasure of his government to bear on him. After the 1986 publication of The Other Shore was banned he went on a walking tour in which he followed the Yangtze from the source to the sea. FTP- Who is this recent Nobel prize winner that left China to settle in Paris in 1987, author of Fugitives, One Man's Bible, and Soul Mountain?
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His poems include an admonishment to a Spaniard for brushing his teeth with piss, a warning to a napkin-thief, a tirade against an over-priced prostitute, and a vicious warning to two former friends that he will orally and anally rape them. He also wrote a masturbation joke addressed to Cato the Younger and implied that Caesar was a homosexual. His more traditional works include an ode on his brother's tomb, containing the words, "frater, ave atque vale." However, he is best known for his love poems which include a defense of his lover against Quintia and a poem about her sparrow. FTP identify this Roman poet who loved Lesbia.
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In 1968 he denounced the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in his poem "Russian Tanks in Prague." His novel Wild Berries dealt with the Stalinist collectivization of agriculture and the elimination of the kulaks, land-owning peasants. Other works by this man include A Wave of the Hand, Almost at the End, A Precocious Autobiography, and The Third Snow. But it was Dmitri Shostakovich set his most famous poem to music in his Thirteenth Symphony. FTP, name this Russian author of Zima Junction and Babi Yar.
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In Alberto Moravia's The Conformist, one character of this name, along with Marcello, is told to assassinate Professor Quadri. In Ippolito Nievo's novel The Castle of Fratta, another character with this name is a gluttonous priest and brother of Count Giovanni. In one story, the most famous character of this name falls in love with the sister of Uberto, and, in pursuing her has many adventures, including slaying the Tartar king Agrican. In another work, this character and Astolpho lead a Nubian army against Biserta and later, he saves Rogero from a desert island. In a famous chanson de geste, the French version of this character carries the sword Durendal, prior to his death at Roncevaux Pass. For ten points, identify this literary name most commonly associated with a character who, in works by Boiardo and Ariosto, is "Innamorato" and "Furioso."
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In Book 3 of this work, some characters see a circle of white swans who are destroyed by eagles, after which one character urges her father to go to war. Three years pass before the war begins, and even then one army is delayed when Bacchus commands some river gods to create a drought. In Book 10, the king's son Menoeceus kills himself to save his city, after which one of the main characters is killed by a lightning strike. Following the death of Capaneus, Megara and Tisiphone incite two of the main characters to kill each other, after which their father is banished to Cithaeron. The Nemean characters in this work include Lycurgus and Hypsipyle, but more famous are such Argives as Tydeus, Amphiaraus, and Adrastus. FTP, name this epic poem in twelve books about the war of Eteocles and Polynices for rule of the titular city, a work written around 90 AD by Publius Papinius Statius.
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In Caleb Carr's The Alienist, Dr. Lazslo Kriezler investigates the murder of young men with this occupation. Characters with this job cry during a confirmation in the short story "Madame Tellier's Establishment," while Disgrace opens with David Lurie's encounter with a member of this profession, Soraya. A person with this job uses a cheese knife to stab Mademoiselle Fifi, while a member of this occupation named Elizabeth Rousset is forced to sleep with a Prussian officer in "Ball of Fat." In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov tells a member of this profession, Sonya about his murder of Lizaveta. For 10 points, name this occupation shared by Zola's Nana and the title character of Mrs. Warren's Profession.
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In Herman Hesse's Klingsor's Last Summer, the title character addresses his cruel friend Louis as one of these, while in Garcia Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch, the title character's mother spends her days adding color to them. Nikolai Diakonov is restored to the good graces of the Czar in a Rebecca West novel where these "fall down," and Croft kills one that is rescued by Roft in Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. A seller of decrees, a man who wishes to kill his father, and the surveyor Meton all attempt to gain favors from them in a play where Pisthetaerus becomes their king. In that play, Epops and Trochilus establish Nephelococcygia and displace the worship of Zeus. FTP, name these title figures of an Aristophanes play, also found in Jerzy Kosinzki's book about a "painted" one and in a "chronicle" by Haruki Murakami about the "wind-up" kind.
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In Mamet's American Buffalo, Teach gripes about the stinginess of Gracie and a character of this name. A Wordsworth figure with this name "wanders forth with freedom bold" but goes made after the Youth deserts her. Lycidas commands "look homeward angel, and melt with" this word. One character of this name spends two hours upstairs with Joey without "going the whole hog" after finally meeting her husband Teddy's family in The Homecoming, while another is Rabbit Angstrom's first infidelity. The Old Testament character of this name follows Naomi to Israel and marries Boaz in a namesake book. For 10 points, name this great-grandmother of David.
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In The Clouds, Eupolis is accused of having plagiarized this play. It opens with a joke about masturbation speeds as well as complaints about the actions of a Paphlagonian slave. Primarily set outside of the house of Demos, it features the bantering of Nicias and Demosthenes. With the apparent primary character being the sausage-seller Agoracritus, the focus of this play is actually the greed of Cleon. FTP, name this Aristophanes play that is named for its chorus of mounted warriors.
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In a chapter of this novel entitled "The Hedgehog", the main character confesses that although he does not know Parsifal very well, the episode of the three drops of blood in the snow always stuck with him. Another character in this novel dies from swallowing a pin to conceal his affiliation, and a major scene in this novel sees the main character place the title object in the hands of a baby Jesus. The early part of this novel tells of how Joseph Koljaiczek hid beneath the skirts of the main character's Kashubian grandmother, and later in this novel the main character joins a gange called the Dusters that conducts raids on S.S. offices. This novel's main character has a voice that can shatter glass and, either of his own will or because of an accident, stops growing at three. For 10 points, identify this novel about the possessor of the titular instrument, Oskar Matzerath, the middle part of Gunther Grass' Danzig Trilogy.
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In its final scene, Teucer decides that for the sake of the common good, he will not seek revenge for his brother's death, even though the code of honor gave him both the right and the obligation to do so. Although Odysseus emerges as the peacemaker, this drama is notable for its harshly negative portrayal of other mythological figures, including Agamemnon, Menelaus, and even Athena. For 10 points identify this Sophocles tragedy, which deals with the madness and suicide of a Trojan War hero.
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In its second section a note to unmarried men advises, "Let your wife have been grown up four years, and marry her in the fifth." Other topics like injunctions against a variety of evils, a taunting tongue, and gossip occupy the remainder of that second part, which makes up lines 276 through 828. The first part includes an allegorical passage addressing this work to the author's brother, Perses, and then discusses two major myths. The second myth traces the decline of man from the Golden Age to the author's own Iron Age, and the first myth discusses Pandora and her box. However, the overall theme deals with peasant life and the necessity of honest, strenuous work. Written sometime in the 8th-century BC, FTP, name this long poem by Hesiod
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In on of this author's short stories, a young woman is swindled by a man who asks for money to open a Ford dealership. Another of his works centers on a conversation with a long-dead Spanish painter whom the narrator sees in a café. In addition to "Notes on Goya," this man wrote a novel about the time spent in Travnik by the French consul Daville, and he created the characters of Chamil and Karadjoz in his novel about an Istanbul prison, The Damned Yard. He is more famous for a novel that depicts 400 years of Ottoman rule, a work centered around a titular structure in the town of Vishegrad. FTP, name this Serbian author of The Woman From Sarajevo, The Bosnian Chronicle, and The Bridge on the Drina.
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In one episode in this novel, the members of a poetry club go kite-flying while preparations are made for the funeral of another character, who had committed suicide by swallowing a piece of gold, Second Sister Yu. The first chapter sees a man who lives next to the Gourd Temple, Shi Yin, chat with Yu Cun and send him off to the capital before leaving himself. The beginning of this novel explains how the story is actually engraved on the one stone not used by Nu Wa-shi to repair the heavens. The protagonist loves Lin Daiyu but is destined to marry Xue Baochai; "precious jade" is the meaning of the name of the protagonist, Pao-yu. For 10 points, identify this novel, which chronicles the Rongguo House and the Ningguo House of the Jia family, written by Cao Xueqin.
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In one novel set in this country, boats laden with straw dummies feign an attack to steal enemy arrows for reuse. Another novel set in this country features a talking stone in its preface. The Oath of the Peach Garden occurs in one novel set in this country, which was also the setting of a novel in which one hundred and eight outlaws stow away in a marsh. A Buddhist monk's travels with the Monkey King make up another of its “Four Classical Novels.†For 10 points, name this country, the setting of Water Margin, Journey to the West, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
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In one of his earliest works, a subway pervert is given a chance at redemption, but decides he would rather be happy as a social pariah than secure in a desk job. In addition to Homo Sexualis, this author described a character who reminisces about the Happy Days before he and his father were irradiated by a shining gold chrysanthemum in "The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away." He also wrote a novel about the brothers Takashi and Mitsusaburo, and his son Hikari's autism influenced his novel about Bird. For 10 points, identify this Japanese author of Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, A Personal Matter, and The Silent Cry.
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In one of his novels, the title character's parents have sex on Epiphany in 1992 so their child could be the first one born on Columbus Day. The title character of another of his books is the niece of Senora Consuelo, who employs Felipe Montero to edit her late husband's memoirs. In a 1967 novel, he wrote about a group of people who travel to Vera Cruz from Mexico City. His second novel, The Good Conscience, followed a book that explored his country's pre-Columbian past, Where the Air Is Clear. FTP, name this Mexican author of Christopher Unborn, Aura, and The Death of Artemio Cruz.
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In one of his stories, Sergey makes fun of Mitya because Mitya's father Silan is sleeping with Mitya's wife Maria. In another of his stories, a young woman who had been betraying her fellow students offers to prostitute herself to the narrator if he can keep her name from being reported after the revolution. In addition to "On the Rafts" and "The Nightmare," he wrote about an unusual color of paint which was applied to Konstantin Mironov's house in "A Sky-Blue Life." In his first story, an old gypsy tells a story about Loyko Zobar, while his most famous story is set in a pretzel factory. The author of "Makar Chudra" and "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl," he also wrote such novels as The Life of Klim Samgin and The Artamanov Business. FTP, name this Russian author of Mother and The Lower Depths.
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In one of his stories, the prostitute Dede cuts her throat to avoid being sexually abused by soldiers and Marjomi and Emokhai lament their poverty. In another, the shooting of a disfigured woman by three soldiers on the evening of an eclipse is witnessed by the boy Omovo. Those two stories, In the City of Red Dust and In the Shadow of War, were published in his collection Stars of the New Curfew. This man's poetry collections include Mental Fight, and he published a collection of essays, A Way of Being Free. In another work, an artist loses his paintings to the authorities and dreams about escaping to the US with his neighbor's wife. That novel, Dangerous Love, was preceded by such works Flowers and Shadows. In another novel, politicians from the Party of the Rich distribute contaminated milk, the central family is aided by Madame Koto, and the protagonist's father relates the story of a giant whose stomach is washed onto the titular path. For 10 points, identify this Nigerian author who created the abiku Azaro in his Booker prize winning The Famished Road.
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In one of his works, a priest who had been falsely accused of rape dies after rushing into a burning house to save the accuser's baby, revealing that the priest was a woman. In addition to "The Martyr," he wrote about a robber who tries to climb out of hell using the title object in "The Spider's Thread." In one work the protagonist of one work is horrified to discover his daughter had been placed in a burning carriage that he had requested to inspire the title artwork, while in another of his works a servant is angered to find a beggar woman pulling out hairs from corpses to make wigs at the title gate. For 10 points, name this Japanese author, who wrote "Hell Screen" and "Rashomon."
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In one of this author's novels, Father Paez convinces Catalina that she has corrupted her soul by marrying the title character. King Philip II appears in this author's novel in which the eve of the new millennium sees an act of love between Celstina and Pollo Phoibe. This author of Terra Nostra included a frame story about a group of diggers discussing an exhumed corpse in a novel that ends with the revelation that the narrator is Ambrose Bierce. His most famous novel follows the titular corrupt politician on his deathbed as he reflects upon his life. For 10 points, name this Mexican author of The Old Gringo and The Death of Artemio Cruz.
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In one of this author's novels, Tertuliano discovers his resemblance to film star Antonio. This author of The Double used the convent of Mafra as the setting for Baltasar and Blimunda. Fernando Pessoa outlives the title author by nine months in his The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. This author wrote a novel in which the Iberian Peninsula breaks off from Europe, and his most famous novel features rampant crime because everyone other than the doctor's wife suffers from the title condition. For 10 points, name this author of The Stone Raft and Blindness, a Nobel Laureate from Portugal.
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In one of this author's novels, seventeen half-brothers with the same first name are marked for death by permanent Ash Wednesday crosses. He wrote about Dr. Urbino's death while trying to capture a parrot in a novel that ends with Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza sailing down a river while flying a yellow flag. This author of Love in the Time of Cholera created Remedios, Aurileano, and other descendents of Ursula and Jose Arcadio Buendia in a novel set in Macondo. For 10 points, name this magical realist author who wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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In one of this author's novels, the protagonist is interrogated by policemen named Bookish and Fishermen about the murder of Mei after befriending a thirteen year old psychic at the Dolphin Hotel. In another, the protagonist avoids INKlings during a journey to an underground laboratory, and is assigned to read dreams from unicorn skulls by "the gatekeeper." This author of Dance, Dance, Dance wrote about a trilogy of novels about "the Rat," including A Wild Sheep Chase, as well as Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. For 10 points, name this contemporary Japanese novelist of Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
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In one of this author's short stories, a man scams a group of people out of an orange during a several-day-long traffic jam. He also wrote of a flight attendant who travels from Rome to Tehran and back three times each week and drowns off the remote island of Xiros while dreaming that he is there on vacation. Another of his stories is about a man who habitually visits the botanical garden in Paris until he switches minds with the creature he is observing there. This author of "The Axlotl" wrote of Roberto Michel, who photographs a disturbing seduction. In a novel by this author, Osip Gregorovius has an affair with a member of the Serpent Club, to the dismay of Horacio Oliveira. That book starts with a Table of Instructions, which allows readers to proceed from chapter one to fifty-six, or start on chapter seventy-three and skip around the entire book. For 10 points, name this author of "Blow-Up" and Hopscotch.
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In one of this author's short stories, a man staying in a palace built by Emperor Mahmud Shah II is intoxicated by its illusions before being snapped back to reality by Meher Ali. In another of this author's short stories, Nandalal abandons his maid Ratan after teaching her how to write. Besides writing "The Hungry Stones" and "The Postmaster," this author wrote a short story in which Amal leaves for England after realizing that Bhupati's wife Charu is in love with him, as well as a story in which Chidam's wife Chandara accepts the blame for Dukhiram's murder of Radha. This author of "The Broken Nest" and "Punishment" collected his short stories in Galpaguchchha. This author's poem "Amar Sonar Bangla" was chosen as the national anthem of Bangladesh. For 10 points, name this Bengali author of a collection translated into English as "Song Offerings," Gitanjali.
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In one of this author's short stories, a motorcycle accident causes the narrator to dream that he is Chuang Tzu, a man about to be sacrificed on an Aztec altar. In addition to "The Night Face Up," this author wrote about a reader who is murdered by a character in the novel he is reading in "Continuity of Parks." He described a photographer who shoots a picture of a teenage boy being seduced by an older woman in "Las Babas del Diablo," the basis for Antonioni's film Blow-Up. In one of his novels, La Maga's disappearance in Paris causes Horacio Oliveira to return to Buenos Aires. For 10 points, name this Argentine author of a novel that allows the reader to jump between chapters, Hopscotch.
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In one of this author's short stories, the narrator becomes captivated by thoughts of the title object after picking up a coin. Other of his stories describe a nineteen year old invalid with an incredible memory, a "monstrous" book containing an infinite number of pages, and a fictional planet founded on the principles of Berkelian idealism. In addition to "Funes, the Memorious", "The Book of Sand", and "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", this author wrote short stories about an object that allows the narrator to see the entire universe and an infinite expanse of hexagonal rooms containing books with every possible combination of characters. FTP, name this Argentinian author of "El Aleph" and "The Library of Babel" who collected his stories in Ficciones.
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In one of this author's short stories, the title character is killed after taking a boy hostage, after which his body is dumped in an unused mine and stinks up the village. In addition to The Catch, this author has recently completed the trilogy The Flaming Green Tree, a work he claims will be his last. Other works by him include a four-volume collection that contains a story about the boy Eeyore, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, and a novel about children who are taken to a remote village after a plague breaks out. The birth of Bird's child with a brain hernia parallels this man's own experiences with his retarded son and is central to his A Personal Matter. FTP, identify this author of Nip the Bud, Shoot the Kids, who also wrote about the brothers Mitsu and Takashi in The Silent Cry.
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In one of this author's stories, Sayoko's letter to her mother reports how the titular defect angered her husband. In addition to writing “The Pomegranate†and “The Mole,†this author created a character who writes the book A Girl of Sixteen about his affair with Otoko Ueno. Keiko Sakami ruins that character created by this author, Toshio Oki. This author of Beauty and Sadness wrote about a man who is an expert on Western ballet, despite never seeing one, in a novel that includes a fire in a silk-cocoon warehouse during a film screening. That novel by this author is about the love triangle between Yoko, the geisha Komako, and the businessman Shimamura. For 10 points, name this Japanese author of Snow Country and The Sound of the Mountain.
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In one of this author's works, the photographer Francisco Leal falls in love with Irene Beltran despite her engagement to an army captain known as The Bridegroom of Death. Another of this author's novels focuses on Eliza Sommer's relationships with Tao Chi'en and Joaquin Andieta. That novel, Portrait in Sepia, is continued in this author's novel about Aurora de Valle, Daughter of Fortune. This author wrote a novel about Rolfe Carl's relationship with the title storyteller, and a novel about Esteban's marriage to the psychic Clara. For 10 points, name this Chilean author of Eva Luna who wrote about the Trueba family in The House of the Spirits.
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In one of this man's novels, Ralph, the former governor of Isabella, laments "the shipwreck which all my life I had sought to avoid." His earlier novels include The Suffrage of Elvira and The Mystic Masseur, while his short fiction is collected in A Flag on the Island. Richard cooks up the titular plan to have Excal employees visit retirees in Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion, while in another novel Popo, Hat, and Bogart are among the residents of Miguel Street. "One out of Many" and "Tell Me Who to Kill" along with the titular vignette make up In a Free State, while his better-known characters include a man who moves to Africa after buying a store from Nazruddin, Salim, and a journalist who wants nothing more than to own his own home. FTP name this Trinidadian author of A Bend in the River and A House for Mr. Biswas.
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In one of this man's novels, the owner of the After the Show Retreat is married to the radical politician Yuken Noguchi. Another novel sets the Daphnis and Chloe story on Uta-Jima and stars the lovers Hatsue and Shinji. In addition to After the Banquet and The Sound of Waves, this author wrote a novel in which Fusako falls in love with Ryuji, the titular Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. More famously, he wrote a series of novels about Honda and Kiyaoki's births and rebirths, as well as a novel about Mizoguchi, a young monk who sets fire to the titular building. For 10 points, identify this author of The Sea of Fertility tetralogy and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
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In one of this man's poems, he describes "Yesterday's news" as "more remote / than a cuneiform tablet smashed to bits" and calls people "buffoons," "coyotes," and "satraps." That poem, "Return," was published in an eponymous volume after he ended his tenure in a government post he described in his poem "Vrindaban." His love of free verse is seen in works like "Same Time," "Clear Night" and "A Draft of Shadows," while his attachment to the mythology of his home country is evident in "The Broken Jar" and "Sun Stone." He summed up his theories on poetry in The Bow and the Lyre, although he is better known for a prose work about his home country. FTP name this Mexican poet, the author of The Labyrinth of Solitude.
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In one of this man's short stories, the narrator is mesmerized by the translucent skin and blue veins of a local notary's wife, with whom he spends Christmas Eve. In addition to "Midnight Mass," he wrote a story in which Dr. Bacamarte imprisons everyone in the town of Itaguai for insanity, "The Psychiatrist." He penned the poetry collection Crisalidas and a novel in which the protagonist goes mad pretending to be Napoleon III after inheriting the title creature. Another of his novels chronicles the title character's jealousy over Capitolina, Dom Casmurro. The creator of Quincas Borba, for ten points identify this Brazilian author of Philosopher or Dog and The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas.
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In one of this man's stories the cab driver Iona prolongs fares unnecessary in order to tell passengers about his recently deceased son. The title character of another story looks through a porthole of an infirmary ship to see Chinese men shouting "It sings! It sings!," while in a better-known work Nikolai becomes nostalgic for the country life as he dreams of growing the title fruit. In addition to "Gusev" and "Gooseberries," this man wrote a story in which a man vacationing at Yalta meets Anna Sergeevna von Diederitz, the mysterious canine-loving title character. Better known are plays such as The Wood Demon, which was later adapted into a play about a burnt-out intellectual who incurably lusts after Yelena, the wife of Professor Alexandr Serebryakov. Other subjects of his dramas include the estate of Madame Ranevskaya and the Prozorov family along with Konstantin Treplev, who leaves the title bird at the feet of Nina Zaretchyn. FTP name this author of The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull.
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In one of this man's works, the armies of the title figure march all the way to the Amu Darya, where they defeat the Hepthalites, and then continue on to defeat the Kambojas. The title character of another of his works, which is written in a meter called “slow-stepper,†is sent to find “the supremest woman from the Creator's workshop gone†and is advised to disperse mountain monsters with “pelting hail†before passing through the Swan-gate on the way to Mount Kailasa. This author of The Dynasty of Raghu and a poem about a servant of Kubera wrote a play whose title character loses the signet ring that allows her husband Dushyanta to identify her. For 10 points, identify this Sanskrit-language author of “The Cloud Messenger†and The Recognition of Shakuntala.
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In one of this writer's works, a clerk named Dandeker embarks on a journey to heal "the growth on his wife's womb." Another of this author's works focuses on the divergent paths of two peasant girls, one of whom chooses to remain in her home village while the other runs off to the city. That work, Two Virgins, was preceded by another work depicting how Richard's ethnicity leads to tension with his love Mira. In addition to Some Inner Fury, this author explored the perils of modernization in a novel about the newly arrived British engineer Clinton, who loses his young wife Helen, to a man named Bashiam, as he builds the title structure in The Coffer Dams. This writer created such characters as Ravi who struggles to interact with his wife Nalini and his son Raju, after moving to Madras, as well as the long suffering couple Nathan and Rukmani in the 1954 novel that made her name. For 10 points, identify this Indian author of A Handful of Rice and Nectar in a Sieve.
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In one section of this book, a husband confesses that he murdered his wife because he saw a slave carrying one of the three apples he bought for her, after a fisherman discovers her body chopped into pieces in a chest. In some translations, this book ends with the story of Jullanar of the Sea. In another section of this work, a little hunchback chokes to death on a piece of fish provided by a tailor, resulting in a Jewish physician, a Muslim purveyor, and a Christian merchant all claiming responsibility for the hunchback's death, before that hunchback is restored to life by a barber. Many stories in this book focus on Ja'far ibn Yahya and the caliph Haroun al-Rashid. For 10 points, name this book translated into English by Richard Burton, whose frame narrative consists of King Shahryar listening to the stories told by Scheherezade.
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In one section of this novel a man is given a magic net after bringing back a bell from a blacksmith. This work's narrative occasionally pauses for such section titles as "There Remain Greater Tasks Ahead." In addition to meeting "Drum, Song, and Dance," its hero encounters a "complete gentleman" who it turns out has leased his body parts from traders and is actually just a skeleton living in the ground. It also features episodes with a wish granting egg, as well as a bush that comes to life. Its opening section describes the narrator changing into a canoe to allow his wife to cross a river. Written in pidgin English prose and often published alongside another of its author's works, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, its plot was adapted from Yoruba folktales, and it recounts the title figure's journey to find his recently deceased tapster in "Deads' Town." For 10 points, identify this novel by Amos Tutuola.
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In one section of this novel, a commander has to hang his friend for stealing coins from a derailed train, while, in another, a woman described as having "a moon face" helps a man trapped in a cellar with two vicious dogs to escape. It begins with a different women reminiscing about her decision to return to Washington, D.C., and that woman had originally fled her previous existence after her beau, Mr. Delaney, was found guilty of fraud and crossed the border. The second chapter depicts the exhumation of a man who'd traveled with a copy of Don Quixote and a Colt .44 to join men like Colonel Frutos Garcia in their struggle. Much of the novel revolves around a love triangle between the teacher, Harriet Winslow, the General, Tomas Arroyo, and the title figure, who consistently reflects on the war stories he has written in the past. Inspired by its author's interest in his real life subject's disappearance during the Civil War, it was composed after Terra Nostra and The Death of Artemio Cruz. For 10 points, identify this novel whose potentially pejorative title refers to Ambrose Bierce, a work by Carlos Fuentes.
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In one section the author compares a belief in corporeality with idolatry, while another discusses God's multiple intelligences. Its last chapter focuses on wisdom and the perfectibility of man, and it notes that the fourth and final kind of perfection can only be achieved through faith. Interspersed throughout the text are references to the mystical Merkabha section of the book of Ezekiel. Its introductory sections include "Directions for the study of this work" and "On Method," the latter of which addresses the inconsistencies commonly found in the Mishnah. Written in the form of a letter to the author's student, it attempted to allay Joseph ben Judah's religious confusion. For 10 points, identify this 1190 treatise written in Arabic, an attempt to reconcile Aristotle with Judaism, by Maimonides.
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In one stanza of this poem, the speaker describes his journey through "galleries of sound" and a forest "Whose trees are pillars of magic." The speaker makes frequent allusions to a woman whose loins are like crystal and water and whose waist he travels through as through a river. He later refers to that woman as "serpent goddess" and "lady of midnight," comparing her belly to the brightly lit center of a city. After an epigraph from Gerard de Nerval's "Chimeras," this poem begins with the speaker invoking "a willow of crystal, a poplar of water, a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over," which takes the "calm course of a star," which is restated in the last stanza as something the "magic of reflections" resurrects. An artifact celebrating the fifth age of the world is the title object of, for 10 points, what long poem that has one line for every day of the Aztec Calendar by Octavio Paz.
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In one story by this author, Alexander Cragie becomes fascinated with blue stones. This author of "Blue Tigers" wrote a story about a Babylonian king is stranded in the middle of a desert, and another about a boy who could recall a day's worth of memories at will. This author of "The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths" and "Funes the Memorious" wrote a story about a structure of infinite hexagonal rooms, as well as a story about the murder of Dr. Stephen Albert. For 10 points, identify this author whose stories "The Library of Babel" and "The Garden of Forking Paths" are collected in Ficciones, a blind author from Argentina.
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In one story by this author, James takes his son Andrew to the title locale in Edinburgh to see the coast of America, while in another story Dick has sex with a girl in a barn after he is told that her father was decapitated. That story appears in this author's first collection along with "Walker Brothers Cowboy" and the title story, in which a group of disabled students are included in a piano recital. The character Del Jordan creates a memoir of the town of Jubilee in her only novel, while "Oranges and Apples" and "Blowtrain" are among the stories collected in Friend of My Youth. This author responded to O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in "Save the Reaper," one of the stories collected in The Love of a Good Woman. Also known for a collection featuring the character Juliet Henderson, Runaway, this is, for 10 points, what Canadian author of Dance of the Happy Shades?
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In one story by this author, the daughter of a fox farmer opens a gate to allow the mare Flora to escape. In another story by this author, the unnamed narrator and her father, who awaits a heart operation, discuss the title celestial bodies but avoid discussing the narrator's uncommunicative daughter Nichola. In addition to "Boys and Girls" and "The Moons of Jupiter," this author wrote a collection whose title story sees the mothers of a bunch of normal children at a piano recital wowed by a retarded girl's rendition of a piece from Gluck's Orfeo ed Eurydice. That collection was the first of three by this author to win the Governor-General's Award for Fiction. For 10 points, name this Canadian author of the novel Progress of Love and the short story collection Dance of the Happy Shades.
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In one story by this author, two boys get a toy sail boat for their good grades, but drown in the light that escapes from broken lightbulbs. In another story the Pope comes to visit Nicanor while attending "Big Mama's Funeral". This author wrote about Meme, the mistress of a doctor who commits suicide, ushering Isabel and the Colonel to describe the title event in his story "Leaf Storm". The oldest woman leads a village of tiny people to bury Esteban in one of his stories, while in another Pelayo discovers a figure lying face down in the mud who the village thinks is an angel. For 10 points, name this author of "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" who wrote about the Buendia family in One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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In one story by this man Nancy is the shallow wife of the schoolmaster Michael, whose attempt to close a footpath gets him fired. He wrote children's stories like "The Flute" and "The Drum," while adult short story collections include The Sacrificial Egg and Girls at War. He began writing novels as a response to Joyce Cary's Mister Johnson, an effort which produced characters like an army officer known as "Destroyer of Guns," Captain T.K. Winterbottom, and John Goodcountry, who advocates the killing of Pythons. That novel concerns a priest who refuses to declare the New Yam Festival, Ezeulu. Other works include a novel about the populist Chief Nanga, A Man of the People, and two novels concerning Obi and his father, Okonkwo. FTP name this author of No Longer at Ease and Things Fall Apart.
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In one this author's novels, a schoolteacher and a poet named “Cool Max†form a political party to run against the corrupt Minister of Culture, Chief Nanga. He penned a novel in which Clara has an abortion, which Obi pays off by taking a bribe. That novel is a sequel to his work that details the ritual sacrifice of Ikemefuna and the conversion of Nwoye. In that novel by this author of No Longer at Ease, the rising influence of white missionaries in Umuofia leads Okonkwo to hang himself. For 10 points, name this Nigerian author who wrote Things Fall Apart.
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In one this author's short stories, a charlatan who sells fake ringworm medicine finds himself competing with Rastafarian and a Jehovah's Witness for clients on a crowded molue, or bus. That story, in addition to such works as "In the City of Red Dust" and "When the Light Returns," was published in the collection Stars of the New Curfew. A novel by this author centers on a painter's love for Ifeyiwa, who dreams of killing her husband. That work, Dangerous Love, preceded a story inspired by the Sudanese famine, "A Prayer for the Living." His first novel, about a man named Jeffia who realizes his family wealth is due to the corruption present in Lagos, was called Flowers and Shadows. In another work, this author introduces the vivacious barkeep Madame Koto who interacts with the "abiku," Azaro. For 10 points , identify this author of Incidents at the Shrine and The Famished Road.
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In one work by this author, an older couple named Anne and Bernard drag the middle aged writer Daniel and his attractive younger girlfriend into their domestic struggle. In another work, set during a dream, a train journey forces a nameless traveler to face the evils of the world as represented by the archetypal Tramp, Thug, and Master. Both of those plays, Weekend Quartet and Nocturnal Wanderer, illustrate what this author refers to as "theatricality," a reaction against the "revolutionary realism" that dominated his homeland's literary scene at the time. This author of such short stories as "The Temple" and "Buying a Fishing Rod for My Father," also wrote a work based on the life of Huineng entitled Snow in August. Still another work follows a narrator who seems to change identities as he/she journeys from Sichuan Province to the fabled Lingshan. For 10 points, identify this author of Soul Mountain.
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In one work in this genre, Chief Cocomel protects the Lunareja, and the title character is defeated by Juan Sin Ropa. In another work in this genre, Leandro Galvan becomes the guardian of Fabio Cáceres, a waif who is willed a ranch by the title character. In addition Hilario Ascasubi's poem Santos Vega and Ricardo Güiraldes's novel Don Segundo Sombra, another work in this genre focuses on a payador who deserts from the army with Sargeant Cruz and loses a singing contest to a black man. Incorporating the language of the pampas, for 10 points, name this genre of Argentine literature exemplified by Jose Hernandez's poem Martin Fierro, which describes the rural life of the title people.
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In one work of this title, an old man is called "Old turtle!" after referring to pickpockets as "three-handed" people, and that old man babbles about chess to Glasses. Other characters in that work include a mother who doesn't want her red dates and sesame seeds to go to waste, one who really wants to taste yogurt, Hothead, and a director who offers Carpenter some "Big Front Door" cigarettes. In another work of this name, a scene from Romeo and Juliet is performed by Gerald Lyman and Elma Duckworth, and Cherie agrees to go to Montana with Bo Decker. The waitress Grace and the other characters are snowed in at that work's title location, a diner near Kansas City. For 10 points, give the shared title of these plays, works of Gao Xingjian and William Inge.
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In one work, this author claimed to be contaminated by the “corrosive power of words†and asserted that the male body exists in a form that rejects existence. In that work, he also expressed his desire to become a “man of action.†As a child, one of this man's protagonists watches a group of men carrying a portable shrine who trample his family's garden. That character first ejaculates to a Guido Reni painting of Saint Sebastian and becomes infatuated with his classmate Omi. This author also created a character who antagonizes Father Dosen and befriends the clubfooted Kashiwagi. This author of Sun and Steel described Kochan's struggles with homosexuality in Confessions of a Mask. For 10 points, name this man who wrote about Mizoguchi in Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
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In the 18th book of this work, we learn that the central figure got down from his carriage in hopes of speaking to a madman, but the latter avoided a conversation by hurrying away. That book also includes a list of "men who withdrew from society" and an episode where the central figure announces that "one cannot associate with birds and beasts." In the 20th and final book, we learn that a man who embraces the five excellent practices can take part in government. Along with the other Sishu, this book was published by Zhu Xi in 1190 and consists of remarks compiled after a sage died in 479 BCE. FTP, name this Chinese classic containing the sayings of Confucius.
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In the Nathanael West novel The Dream Life of Balso Snell, a flea named Saint Puce spent his entire life in the armpit of this person. The title character of Flannery O'Connor's short story "Parker's Back" gets a tattoo of this man, who, in a poem by Alexander Blok, leads twelve Red Army soldiers. José Saramago wrote a novel about The Gospel According to this religious figure, who was posed the titular question by Paul in the Henryk Sienkiewicz novel Quo Vadis?. FTP, name this prophet who dies at the beginning of Pär Lagerkvist's novel Barabbas and whose "last temptation" was chronicled by Nikos Kazantzakis.
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In the Purgatorio, it is through the agency of this text that Statius is redeemed though it is more likely to have been an allusion to an expected child of Marc Antony and Octavia or even a sycophantic commentary about Augustus rather than a prophecy of the birth of Christ as was believed during the late Roman Empire and the Middle Ages. It includes the observation that the iron age shall cease and the golden race arise. FTP identify this poem by Virgil.
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In the essay "Boundary Crossings," an expert on this work named Catherine Swatek discusses the avant-garde production of it mounted in the 1990s by Peter Sellars. One of the most popular episodes from this work sees the protagonist's father presiding over spring planting rituals in his home district. Characters in this work include a maid known as Spring Fragrance and a man named Du Bao, who is considered the antithesis of Liu Mengmei, the young scholar who is loved by the protagonist prior to her death and resurrection. For 10 points, name this play written in the 1590s by Tang Xianzu, a Kun opera which is perhaps the most popular dramatic work written in the Ming Dynasty.
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In the movie Romancing the Stone, this happens to the head of the Colombian secret police, Zolo, immediately after obtaining the jewel El Corazon. A man becomes a Pinkerton detective after this happens to him in the book Live and Let Die; on screen, this happens in License to Kill to that character, Felix Leiter, on his wedding day, and it is also implied that this happened to the henchman Tee Hee. Another villain is afraid of a ticking sound because of this event, which resulted in his namesake appendage. For 10 points, name this manual trauma suffered by Captain Hook at the hands of an aquatic reptile that is not an alligator.
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In the preface to this play, the author noted that its last word, read by a gendarme, must electrify everyone on the stage. In the first act of this work, one character relates having dreamed of gigantic rats, after which he berates another character for accepting puppies as bribes. One character in this play lies to the main character about never playing cards, a statement contradicted by Luka. In another incident, Anna and Maria ply the servant Osip for details about the main character's love life, while those who fawn on the main character include the judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin and two similarly names squires. Though the main character proposes to the daughter of the mayor Anton Antonovich, in the final act of this play the Postmaster discovers a letter from that character to his friend mocking the townspeople. For 10 points, name this work by Nikolai Gogol, in which Khlestakov is mistaken for the title official.
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In the sequel to the work in which this character appears, his grandson, Michael, is tried for bribery. In that work, his son, Isaac, is at odds with Michael over the same issue with which he was at odds with Issac. In the original work in which he appeart, the arrival of Mr. Brown and Reverend Smith has caused the proverbial titular action, against which he retaliates by burning a church. His retaliation is precipitated by his displeasure over Isaac's conversion, which is exacerbated by the desecration of a sacred mask. Previously exiled when his gun accidentally discharged and killed a man, he hangs himself when he is unsuccessful in leading his people into war against their white colonizers. FTP, name this protagonist of No Longer at Ease and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
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In the third section, the title character of this work notes that he is only 42 and wishes that he had a Ruch tailcoat. In the next section, he goes to a theater where the fool Filatka is appearing and notes that authors write very funny plays nowadays. He has several conversations with Medji, who has been writing letters to Fidèle, and later astonishes Mavra by revealing that he is the king of Spain. It begins on the morning of October 3, while the last entry is cryptically dated to February 34, in the year 349. FTP, name this story about a clerk named Poprishchin which appeared with Nevsky Prospect in Arabesques, a collection by Nikolai Gogol.
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In this author's first novel, Eugene Dawn is driven to insanity by his work on the Vietnam Project. In his next novel, Magda, the daughter of a sheep farmer, clashes with her father for taking a black mistress. In addition to Dusklands and In the Heart of the Country, he wrote a work in which Susan Barton meets Friday and Cruso, Foe. He is better known for a novel about Melanie's affair with Professor David Lurie, which leads to the title condition, and another about the titular hare-lipped gardener, who escapes from a "retraining camp" hospital and returns to Cape Town. For 10 points, name this South African author of Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K.
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In this author's first novel, the woman "Pinky" bites the cheeks of men she is attracted to, and a postal clerk tries to end his anonymity by climbing a tree and declaring that he is a hermit. In another work by this author, a woman whose clothesline is sagging with name-brand undergarments muses on how V.S. Naipaul is "stuck in the past." That character also offers her daughter's employment at the BBC as evidence that England has become more tolerant. Major characters in that work by this author include a "shadow class" cook who frequently changes jobs in New York, Guju, and a math tutor who leaves the teenage student he has seduced and joins a group of rebels in Nepal, Gyan. This author of Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard is the child of another novelist, who wrote Where Shall We Go This Summer?, Fire on the Mountain, and Clear Light of Day. For 10 points, name this Anglo-Indian writer of The Inheritance of Loss, the daughter of Anita.
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In this author's most recent novel, the Haitian slave girl Zarité leaves New Orleans. This author wrote about a girl who makes imitation grenades from Universal Matter for her friend Huberto Naranjo before marrying Rolf Carlé. In another novel, this writer told of the Las Tres MarÃas hacienda, which houses Esteban and the green-haired prophetess Clara. This author of The Island Beneath the Sea and Eva Luna wrote about the Trueba family in another novel. For 10 points, name this author who wrote The House of the Spirits, a female Chilean-American novelist.
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In this author's story "Hell Screen" a painter attempts to recreate hell on Earth in order to create a more accurate canvas for a wealthy patron. A soldier receives equine limbs in his "Horse Legs." A Buddhist priest regrets his unnecessary surgery in his "The Nose," and the theme of overindulgence in pleasures is emphasized in "Yam Gruel." His "Memorandum to a Certain Friend" determines that a drug overdose is the best way to commit suicide, which he did in 1927. FTP name this author of the Japanese fairy tale "Kappa" and namesake of Japan's most prestigious literary prize, author of "Within a Grove" and "Rashomon."
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In this book, one character lists such "crimes" as spraying oneself with water in the manner of a bum and smiling like a coward. The protagonist is told to smash a cat against a log in front of a crowd of naked onlookers; later, "the chief" performs a dissection, foreshadowing the title character's fate. That character trains as a clothing-store manager but never gets the job, as he is given tea laced with sleeping pills and, by implication, murdered. Beginning with a thirteen-year-old boy watching his mother masturbate through a hole in the wall, it continues as Fusako takes Ryuji as a lover, first thrilling and then disappointing her son. FTP, name this Yukio Mishima novel in which Noboru grows angry at the nautical title character for acting unmanly and coming back to land.
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In this man's most recent work, periodic "choruses" are interspersed between stories concerning a rancher who wants his four sons to be priests, and the rebellious son of the president. A Knight from Don Quixote and the glass found in Olmec tombs serve as repeated metaphors of the title concept in his The Buried Mirror. The myths of his country serve as material for historical analysis in the novel A Change of Skin, and his chief work of literary criticism is The New Hispano-American Novel. Philip II's construction of the Escorial is one of the settings in his Terra Nostra, while an avatar of the Aztec God of war is the narrator of Where the Air is Clear. For ten points, identify this Mexican novelist of The Old Gringo and The Death of Artemio Cruz.
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In this novel, Xius dies of shock after refusing an offer of two bags of money to buy his house, because it reminds him of his dead wife Yolanda. In one incident, roosters are gathered to please a visiting bishop who loves cockscomb soup, but ultimately the bishop only waves a blessing from his steamship and doesn't come on shore. Father Amador performs a haphazard autopsy when Dr. Dionisio Iguaran is gone, and later Colonel Lazaro Aponte checks on the time of his domino game rather than investigating two men in Clotilde Armenta's milk shop, who are waiting for the son of Placida Linero. The title event of this novel is precipitated by Bayardo San Roman returning his wife Angela to her family on their wedding night. For 10 points, name this novel in which the Vicario Brothers murder Santiago Nasar, a work by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
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In this work's final scene the title character, whose praises are sung by a ward whose name means "bread eater," is faced with the threat of having his testicles lopped off and used for necklace beads by the cook Cario. A ring given to the title character by the handmaid Milphidippa sets up the plot that brings about the title character's humiliation, in which he falls for the feigned adulterous advances of the prostitute Acroteleutium, who pretends to be the wife of the elderly Periplectomenus. That scheme, as well as one involving the construction of a fictitious twin to facilitate the romance between Philocomasium and Pleusicles, is executed by the title character's clever slave, Palaestrio. FTP, name this play about Pyrgopolynices, through which Plautus created the stock character of a boastful military man.
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In this work's postscript, the narrator notes the failure of his novel The Sharper's Cards and the considerable success of an acquaintance, who won a Second Prize award in literature. At one point, that prize winner calls the narrator for the first time in his life and invites him to his house, which is owned by landlords Zunino and Zungri. The narrator of this work visits that house every thirtieth of April, the birthday of his deceased lover, Beatriz Viterbo. At the end of this work, the narrator reveals that he believes the titular object is located in a mosque in Egypt, and not in the cellar of the house of poet Carlos Argentino Daneri. For 10 points, name this Jorge Luis Borges short story about an object that allows anyone to see all things, named for the first letter of the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets.
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In this work, Madhavya curses his master for his habit of eating meat on the hunt, and muses over the inaccessibility of hermits like Anasuya or Priyamvada. The hermit, Durvasa, is denied hospitality due to the title character's dreaming, leading him to pronounce a curse which prevents a resident of Guru Kanva's ashram from being recognized by the student of Visvamitra until his signet ring is recovered from the belly of a fish. FTP, name this drama about the birth of the prince Bharata to the title character and her husband Dushyanta, a masterpiece of the Gupta period by Kalidasa.
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It principally developed from the rustic elements of sarugaku, but the adaptations made by Kanami from Genji Monogatari and the Heike inspired his son Zeami to create plays suffused with a delicacy and spirituality descended from Zen. FTP, name this form of Japanese drama in which the figures are masked and the narrative is performed by actors and a chorus.
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Its final book begins by relating the tale of the Carthaginian Caesellius Bassus, who claimed to have found the hidden treasure of Dido. The previous book begins with detail about the military campaigns of Vologeses, the Parthian king, and ends by characterizing Piso's wife as a base woman. The fourth book begins with a brief biography of Sejanus and introduces the rumor that Sejanus poisoned Drusus. Beginning its narrative in AD 14, FTP, name this work that ends unfinished in the reign of Nero, a history of the early Roman emperors written by Tacitus.
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Its fourth section introduces us to two women, the latter of whom, Vera, was a former mistress of this novel's protagonist. Another woman, whom the narrator acquired in exchange for stealing a horse, is the subject of the first section, "Bela." The aforementioned fourth section, "Princess Mary," ends with the protagonist's duel with Grushnisky, an eerie foreshadowing of the author's own death. The first two sections involve Maksim Maksimych, but all of the five tales in this novel feature the Byronic officer in the Caucasus, Pechorin. FTP, name this novel by Mikhail Lermontov.
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Its main character is a hopeless stutterer, taunted by his schoolmates, who eventually becomes an acolyte at a famous temple. However, he becomes obsessed with its beauty, and cannot live in peace until he burns it down. For 10 points, name this novel about Mizoguchi, which is based upon actual events that took place at the Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto in 1950 and which was written by Yukio Mishima.
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Its male protagonist latches on to the prominent birthmark of his deceased father's lover, as an emblem of disgust. She attempts to arrange his marriage with Fumiko, but he commences an affair with her mother, Mrs. Ota, another of his deceased father's lovers. Finding no happiness in this affair, and hindered by his hate for Chikako, Mitani Kikuji cannot find the will to marry Fumiko. Set against the intricacies of the tea ceremony, FTP, identify this Kawabata novel, whose title refers to the pattern on Fumiko's kimono.
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Its name literally means "banana", appropriate considering that it was controlled by a banana company and witnessed a 1928 strike by banana workers. Located near an all-but-impenetrable mountain range, it was founded by Arcadio Jose Buendia and Ursula, and its creator used Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County and his own Anacataca as models. FTP, name this South American city described in One Hundred Years of Solitude and other works by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez.
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Its protagonist practices "bantering" with his new boss, although his jokes fall flat. The protagonist is mistaken for a gentleman at Moscombe and receives a letter from Mrs. Benn, after which this novel's main character goes to Weymouth with a job offer. Real characters in this novel include George Bernard Shaw, who examines the silver at a house party, Lloyd George, and Joachim von Ribbentrop, who tries to influence British politcs by using Lord Darlington. Taking place in a flashback to a trip in Mr. Farraday's Packard, its climax shows Miss Kenton returning to her husband, leaving Stevens with a broken heart. For 10 points, name this Kazuo Ishiguro novel about a butler.
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Its second part, "The New Domain," continues to develop the protagonist's relationships with people like Shoba and Mahesh, a couple who own the "Big Burger" restaurant. Part One, "The Second Rebellion," ends with the death of Father Huismans, a Belgian priest who takes the native culture for granted. Later, Raymond and the femme fatale Yvette are introduced into the volatile mix. Other characters include the protagonist's servant Metty, who helps him mind his store, and the African Zabeth, whose son Ferdinand saves the main character from persecution in the last section, which describes the effects of independence and the return of autocracy via the "Big Man's" nationalization program. FTP, identify this 1979 V.S. Naipaul novel about Salim, who lives in a town at the title location.
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Its subtitle is derived from a piece discarded by the Goddess Nugua from the dome of Heaven, which ends up in the mouth of a youth at birth. Characters in the novel include the protagonist's half-brother Huan, and his sister Cardinal Spring, all of whom descend from Madame Shih. Yet all is not well in the two compounds owned by the family: Black Jade perishes, while Phoenix's abuse of power and usurious practices are exposed as the Chia clan falls into ruin. FTP identify this 18th century work set in Peking which centers on PaoYu's family and is alternately known as The Story of the Stone.
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Kletsch is a locksmith, proud that he is a workman and a nuisance to his fellow lodgers, what with his constant beating of his wife. Natsya, the prostitute, supports the Baron, who deludes himself with recollections of past glory. Into this motley mix comes a saintly pilgrim who offers those about sympathy and hope, either if Luka's sentiments are illusions as well. FTP name this play by Gorky about the wrethed inhabitants of a cellar.
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Minor characters include a messenger who describes speeches made by Talthybios, Diomedes, and the title character, as well as a Phrygian slave who speaks broken Greek. Pylades suggests the title character kill Helen, thereby punishing Menalaus, who failed to help him after being threatened by Tyndareus. The play ends with the title character holding Hermione hostage, though conflict is avoided by the appearance by Apollo, who admits that he ordered the original crime. FTP, name this Euripides tragedy about the aftermath of the murder of Clytemnestra by her son, the title character.
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Noted for having used pure and perfect language in his writing, his plays show more development of character than those of his predecessors. His patrons Laclius and Scipio Aemilianus the younger encouraged him to write his comedies based on Menander, six of which are extant. FTP name this author born in Carthage and brought to Rome as a slave by Terentius Lucanus, who wrote Hecyra, Eunuchus, and Andria.
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One author from this country inserted a woman named Susan Barton into a castaway story. Another author from this country told of Jacobus finding a dead body, which disturbs the industrialist Mehring. One author from this country wrote the novel Foe in addition to a novel in which David Lurie seduces one of his students. Another novelist from this nation created Maureen and Bamford Smales, who flee their home during the Soweto riots. For 10 points, name this country, which is home to the authors of Disgrace and July's People, J.M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer.
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One author from this country wrote a novel in which an entomologist is forced to live with a widow at the bottom of a sandpit. Another author from this country wrote a novel in which Bird copes with his son's mental illness. A third author from this country wrote about an expert in ballet who travels to a spa retreat. Those novelists from this nation wrote the novels The Woman in the Dunes, A Personal Matter, and Snow Country. For 10 points, name this home country of Kobo Abe, Kenzaburo Oe, and Yasunari Kawabata.
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One author from this country wrote a six-volume poetry collection called "Sleepless Nights," and another wrote a Faust-like work whose title is given as The Wish or as Loftur the Sorceror. One author from this country wrote The Black Cliffs and Guest the One-Eyed. One novel by an author from this country features the Parliament member Bui Arland and an organ teacher at whose house the ideas of communism and anarchism are introduced to the girl Ugla. Another novel written by an author from this country follows the sheep farmer and poet Bjartur. Gunnar and Njal and the antiheroic Grettir the Strong all feature in works written in this country. For 10 points, name this nation, home to the author of Independent People, Halldor Laxness, as well as many writers of sagas.
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One author from this country wrote a story whose title character takes a walk each Sunday to people-watch, but when she overhears a couple making fun of her, she imagines her fox-fur crying. That native of this country also wrote a story in which things like a pear tree and Pearl Fulton inspire the titular emotion in Bertha Young. In a novel by another author from this country, the mute Simon is abused by his adoptive father Joe Gillayley and finds his way to the “Tower†where Kerewin Holmes lives. This country is home to the author of “Miss Brill,†“Bliss,†and a story in which Mr. Scott's death fails to derail the title event, despite Laura Sheridan's objections. For 10 points, name this homeland of the authors of The Bone People and “The Garden Party,†Keri Hulme and Katherine Mansfield.
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One author from this nation wrote the poetry collection Ocre before drowning herself in 1938, the year Death-Mask and Clover appeared. A more recent author from this nation wrote the poetry collection Standards as well as Lycanthropy, a history of werewolfism. In addition to Alfonsina Storni and Jorge Fondebrider, this nation was home to the author of the story "The Horses of Abdera" and the poetry collection Sentimental Lunarium, though that author is better known for a 1905 book about a guerrilla war. In one work by a man from this country, Nestor Labarthe's murder at a soccer game signals to Isidro Vidal that the "Young Turks" are about to slaughter the elderly, and in another work by that denizen of this nation, people die after the titular device re-creates two weeks in the lives of the inhabitants of an island. For 10 points, name this home country of the author of Asleep in the Sun, Diary of the War of the Pig, and The Invention of Morel, Adolfo Bioy Casares, who often collaborated with Jorge Luis Borges.
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One chapter of this novel takes on two opposing voices, one of which praises Sir Ernest Oppenheimer and another which regrets that Beresford has such great oratory skills. John Harrison, who is Mary's brother, is left a sizable check for his boy's club, while its protagonist leaves Mrs. Lithebe's house after Johannes Pafuri and Matthew are acquitted for lack of evidence. Its plot had been set in motion after Theophilus Msimangu sent a letter revealing that Gertrude was ill, causing its protagonist to discover that Absalom had shot Arthur Jarvis. As a result, Reverend Stephen Kumalo's son is hanged at the conclusion of, for 10 points, which novel by Alan Paton?
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One character created by this author writes a Ulysses retelling entitled The House on Eccles Street. Before creating the Australian author Elizabeth Costello, this novelist wrote of a Third Bureau officer named Colonel Joll, whose cruelty and decisiveness shocks The Magistrate. In one of this author's novels, Lucy is raped by some thugs after her professor father David Lurie is forced to leave the university when he seduces a student. Another of his characters is a hare-lipped gardener who travels to Prince Albert to deliver his mother's ashes. For 10 points, name this South African author of Disgrace, Waiting for the Barbarians, and The Life and Times of Michael K.
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One character in this novel is instructed to do minor acts of violence against children by Dr. Lucia as treatment for his phobia of wheels. A priest wins converts by beating a faith healer in a fistfight and encouraging masturbation. A Jehovah's Witness threatens to castrate himself in court to prove he did not rape a girl. In this novel, Javier joins the main character in a taxi driving from town to town to find a mayor willing to accept a bribe to marry a minor. Big Pablito and Pascual assist the protagonist after being hired by Genaro Jr. at Radio Panamericana, where he meets a Bolivian author of radio serials. For 10 points, name this novel in which Mario Varguitas interacts with Pedro Comacho, written by Mario Vargas Llosa
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One character in this novel lies about her father having been a soldier who died in Cuba; in fact, he abandoned her mother for a mistress. That character arranges for this novel's title character to receive the grave in Arlington Cemetery that was reserved for her father, having earlier lost a job as tutor to the Miranda children. In addition to Harriet Wilson, characters in this novel include a general named Tomas Arroyo who shoots the title character in the back. That title character is an author whose grief at the deaths of his two sons leads him to leave the United States in 1913. FTP, name this 1985 novel which imagines the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of Ambrose Bierce, a work by Carlos Fuentes.
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One character in this novel plans to write a book called Prospero in Africa. Another character publicly admits his guilt to a question posed by General R after leading a hunger strike in the Rira camp to protest the brutality of John Thompson. The murder of Thomas Robson sparks an armed conflict in this novel, in which a revolutionary leader captures the Mahee police post. It ends with Giyonko reuniting with his wife Mumbi after Mugo admits to betraying the leader Kihika. Set during the Mau Mau rebellion, for 10 points, name this novel by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, whose title refers to a Bible quote about the fruit produced by a falling seed.
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One character in this novel possesses a greyhound named after Charles Lindbergh. The expression "go to Suma" is used as a euphemism for one character's illicit sexual actions, while another character's indiscretions take place in an establishment run by Madame Brent. An important scene in the first chapter of this novel involves the balancing of a water basin between the two central characters. O-hisa's use of sunscreen and western makeup belies her traditional façade, and she is compared to the characters in The Love Suicides at Amijima by the protagonist. That protagonist eventually breaks off his regular relationship with the Eurasian prostitute Louise, though he continues to consent to his wife's affair with Mr. Aso. For 10 points name this novel, in which Kaname's increasing interest in traditional values estranges him from Misako, by Junichiro Tanizaki.
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One character in this novel tells a lengthy story about losing his virginity to a devout old woman before faking a fall in front of a "beauty of the first water." The protagonist of this novel is made to trample on the stomach of a pregnant woman by an American soldier, and watches a woman squirting breast milk into a cup during a tea ceremony. After the stuttering protagonist starts attending university, he befriends the club-footed Kashiwagi. The protagonist repeats the koan "If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him" after becoming an acolyte of the title structure. For 10 points, name this novel in which Mizoguchi burns down the beautiful title structure, a work by Yukio Mishima.
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One character in this novel tells a story about why the tortoise's shell is not smooth to her daughter, after which Chielo reveals that the latter must be taken to Agbala, the Oracle. During the Week of Peace, the protagonist breaks the Peace of Ani by beating his youngest wife, and later on, despite the advice of an elder, the protagonist takes part in the murder of Ikemefuna. The protagonist finds that the church in Umuofia has gained strength after he returns from a seven-year exile for the accidental murder of Ezeudu's son, and later leads an unsuccessful revolt against the colonial leaders. As a result, Okonkwo commits suicide at the end of, FTP, what novel by Chinua Achebe?
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One character in this novel tells a story in which the tortoise loses the smoothness of his shell after being invited to a feast by the birds. Reverend Smith replaces the tolerant Mr. Brown in this novel. The protagonist of this work wrestles with Amalinze the Cat, and is given custody of Ikemefuna. An exploding gun causes the protagonist of this work to accidentally kill a boy. Enoch unmasks the egwugwu causing the rampage and eventual suicide of the protagonist of this work. This novel takes place in Umuofia and takes its title from the Yeats poem “The Second Coming.†For 10 points name this novel about the Igbo Okonkwo, a work of Chinua Achebe.
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One character in this novel uses the callous Irishman Banister to do his bidding, while another issues "a thousand sighs" before beheading a pregnant woman. The protagonist swears revenge against Byam after he is betrayed, despite Colonel Martin's attempts to convince him to let it go. Characters like the Widow Lacklit and the Wheldon sisters were added to an adaptation by Thomas Southerne. This novel's first part takes place in Coromantien, where the protagonist's grandfather tries to steal his wife. The protagonist is nicknamed "Caesar" by the kindly Trefry, but the novel ends tragically when his ears, nose, and arms are cut off after he kills his wife Imoinda, seeks bloody revenge, and is betrayed by Governor of Surinam. For 10 points, name this novel about a "royal slave," a work of Aphra Behn.
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One character in this play claims that he was prevented from entering the military due to "eye disease" and is thus forced to walk around a lake while his companion takes the ferry. That character's name refers to his blond hair and indicates his foreign ancestry, while the title figures make themselves known by chanting "Brekekekex ko-ax ko-ax." In order to imitate Heracles, the protagonist dresses in a lion's skin and carries a club and joins the Eleusianian initiates to view a contest in which verses are weighed on a scale. Eventually, Dionysus (die oh NYE sis) and Xanthias (ZAN thee ess) select Aeschylus to come back to the word of the living, dismissing Euripides (yurr IPP eh deez). FTP, name this play by Aristophanes (err est OFF uh neez), featuring a chorus of marsh-dwelling amphibians.
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One character in this play recommends a glass of schnapps with a pinch of powder for the main character's insomniac notion that the walls are speaking, as both occupy the same bed. At this work's beginning, that character is cutting canes in the undergrowth with Andres when he notices a part of the grass where a decapitated head once resembled a hedgehog. A pooping horse rendered the remark to "be natural," but his doctor, who is angry at him for the natural act of pissing against a wall, asks him to do it in a bottle to evaluate his diet of peas. Later, the protagonist notices "The moon's like a bloody knife!" as he stands in a pool of water. For 10 points, after discovering an affair with the Drum Major, the title character murders his wife Marie in what posthumously performed and fragmented play by Georg Büchner?
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One character in this story describes "placid corpses" floating in the Benares "bloated up like sunfish." That character later taunts another for fearing his entire body will become a "vagina in heat," and that character treasures a Georges Batailles photograph of a man being drawn and quartered. The phrase "a certain party" is used to refer to a man after his son is shot for desertion, about two years before a failed August 16th rebellion during which the fighters sing the titular Bach cantata. This work opens with its narrator throwing a pair of nostril hair clippers at a dwarfen lunatic who has crept into the hospital room where he lies dying of imaginary liver cancer. Mocking the right-wing politics of Yukio Mishima, this story is one of four in a collection that also includes Prize Stock, Aghwee the Sky Monster, and the tale that nicknames the narrator's brain-damaged son Eeyore, "Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness." For 10 points, an enormous golden chrysanthemum in a purple aurora irradiates the world at the end of what novella by Kenzaburo Oe?
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One character in this work considers the chance for an infinite book in The Thousand and One Nights if Scherazade accidentally told the story of The Thousand and One Nights. This work begins by discussing Liddell Hart's A History of the World War and notes the first two pages are missing. This work's main character travels to the village of Ashgrove when he learns about the death of Viktor Runeberg, where he discusses the work produced in the Pavilion of the Limpid Sun by his great-grandfather Ts'ui Pen. The protagonist of this story is arrested by Captain Richard Madden for shooting Dr. Stephen Albert to reveal the location of an upcoming British attack. For 10 points, name this Borges story about the Germany spy Dr. Yu Tsun.
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One character in this work declares the modern invention of the time-table to be more significant than the gospel, Homer, or the entire work of Immanuel Kant. This declaration occurs while several characters are waiting for the Amelia, a ship that originally brought one of the main characters to the island that is the setting of this play. One character in this play points out that naming a female character “Sulla†is inaccurate. Although several of the main characters are killed at the end of Act III by a mob led by Radius, Alquist is left alive and eventually discovers that the love between Primus and Helena will perpetuate the existence of the titular automatons. For 10 points, identify this play by Karel ÄŒapek that introduced the word “robot.â€
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One character in this work has a mysterious recurring dream in which he hears the phrase "and now she is a holy child forever." That character reads a newspaper which says that lotus seeds were made to bloom even though they were over a thousand years old, and he also dreams of ostrich and snake eggs. The novel ends on a happy note with a family sharing three trout for dinner and the main character suggests that they should all go look at the maple trees. Earlier, we learned Fusako was being abused and the wife of the main character had a secret abortion, while his son Shuichi cheated on his wife with a war widow Kinuko. FTP, name this novel about the elderly businessman Shingo who longs to see his family in peace, a work by Kawabata named for the call of a natural landform which only Shingo can hear.
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One character in this work is referred to as a "water-drinker", a reference to the tee-totaling general that the character is based on. Some claim that Eupolis contributed to the second parabasis, although this is unlikely considering the author's accusations of plagiarism of this play by Eupolis in his Marikas. In the conclusion, a character dons a frog-green mantle and takes the place of his rival at the side of his master after stating that "because he lived on the market place in the midst of lawsuits," his name is Agoracritus, the name written on the oracles stolen by Demosthenes and Nicias. FTP, name this play where the Paphlagonian, a caricature of Cleon, is defeated for the love of Demos by a sausage vendor; a work of Aristophanes named for the chivalrous chorus.
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One character in this work is told to "go to the gate or go to hell" by his boss after requesting to be sent back to pots. After hearing a song that claims, "All the world's my neighbor," that character laments the absence of Minnie, a skilled singer. An argument over the price of Radium salts versus Schultz's salts in act one leads to a discussion of plans to buy a farm. In scene two of act three, one character puts on another's dress suit and pleads with his dead mother to love him, asking whether she had loved his brother more. At the beginning of the act his brother calls him "swartgat" after donning the suit, and in the final scene he savagely attacks his brother with an umbrella purchased as part of an attempt to woo Ethel Lange, Zacharias' white pen pal. Morrie's lighter skin leads to a conflict with his brother in, for 10 points, what play by Athol Fugard?
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One character in this work leaves a note saying “I divorce you†after Emerald reveals he has been hiding in the basement. Its narrator describes his grandfather falling in love with his grandmother after examining her medically through a perforated sheet. Mary Pereira works at the Braganze Pickle factory that the narrator starts to manage just before his son Aadam says his first word, Abracadabra. One character founds a street gang, becomes a war hero, and helps the government sterilize the title characters after discovering he was switched at birth with the protagonist. For 10 points, name this novel about Saleem, Shiva, and other Indian children born on August 15, 1947, a work of Salman Rushdie.
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One character in this work loses three fingers after his secret love affair is revealed by Count Jean de Satigny. Another character performs an abortion on his brother's girlfriend Amanda, whose socialist brother loves Alba. At the Red Lantern brothel one of the main characters meets Transito Soto, who uses her influence to free his granddaughter from jail. The main character is traumatized by a rug made from the hide of her dead dog gifted her by her husband, who was formerly engaged to her green-haired sister. She was mute for the nine years following Rosa's death, after which she foretold her marriage to Esteban Trueba at age 19. FTP name this novel about the family of Clara del Valle by Isabel Allende.
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One character in this work notes that, "A life without revelation is no life at all," after helping another character get off three times with a philosophy major that recommends Hegel. He later appears as a cat and instructs that character to liquidate another "with extreme prejudice" after the death of his companion, who had been able to speak to cats prior to a meeting with Johnnie Walker. That character died after arriving at a library and talking with the singer of the title song, who had previously slept with the protagonist, probably her son. After taking on a fake name which, in an Eastern European language, means "crow," the protagonist had gotten off with Sakura, as well as Miss Saeki, prior to finding himself in Shikoku. The intertwined stories of Nakata and Tamura in post-World War II Japan are told in, FTP, which novel by Haruki Murakami?
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One character in this work sends a letter from Leopoldville, asking his unfaithful wife to send him his velocipede. He travels there to recover a mis-shipped airplane, which he wanted to use to start an airmail business, having arrived after marrying his wife in Europe. Before he arrives, Fernanda del Carpio dies of nostalgia, while one of the seventeen half-brothers with the same name works in Melquiades's laboratory. Another character of that name sleeps with Amaranta Úrsula, producing a pig-tailed son. That child of Aureliano's brings an end to the Buendia line in Macondo at the end of, FTP, which novel written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
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One character in this work tells a story about walking to a graveyard with a soldier, who puts his clothes into a magic circle and transforms into a wolf. In one episode the protagonist loses a cloak after sewing gold coins into its linen, but steals the cloak back from a market vendor who doesn't know its true worth. At the end of this work an old man is thrown off a cliff by the villagers of Croton when they discover Eumolpus was pretending to be wealthy. At the start of this novel the protagonist quits teaching at a school run by Agamemnon to go on a journey with Ascyltus and Gito during which he visits a shrine of Priapus and attends Trimalchio's feast. For 10 points, name this Latin novel about Encolpius, written by Petronius.
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One character in this work uses a live snake as a whip to goad a reluctant ghost into reanimating a corpse. One man has a nightmare in which the ghost of his former wife Julia foretells his death; his body is later cremated using burning brands stolen from another man's pyre by Cordus. An army is single-handedly held off for a time by the heroic Scaeva near Dyrrachium, setting the stage for the fateful battle. This poem breaks off shortly after Pothinus dies leading an assault against the palace of Cleopatra. Another passage echoes Vergil's description of Priam's dead body in its treatment of the headless corpse of Pompey. FTP name this epic poem centering on Pompey's conflict with Caesar, written by Lucan.
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One character in this work uses the phrase “a bad bump†to refer to a phone conversation, in which it is revealed that another character's father is being released from the hospital. Songs by Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan frame the events of this work, in which one character encourages another to apologize for hitting Hilda Samuels. One of this play's characters decides to title an essay “A World without Collisions†and recalls the time another character made a kite out of junk at the Jubilee Boarding House. After that character displays his “Basuto buttocks†in response to a racist joke, this play's first title character spits in his face. It opens with Willie practicing his dance steps and ends after Sam attempts and fails to reconcile with Hally. For 10 points, identify this play by Athol Fugard.
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One character in this work, Maria, constantly takes notes on the corners of her pamphlets. After arriving at the place where this work takes place, one character dreams that his left leg belongs to someone else, and when he wakes up it hurts him, possibly because of rheumatism. Telegin plays the guitar at the behest of the doctor during a thunderstorm, but Ephim's music later annoys a character whose wife, Yelena, asks the workman to stop. Yelena is told by her step-daughter of her love for the doctor, who manages to kiss Yelena while showing her his portfolio. Unfortunately, the title character also loves Yelena, and out of anger at her husband, Professor Serebryakov, tries to shoot him. FTP name this play by Anton Chekhov whose title refers to Sonya's label for Ivan Voynitsky.
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One character in this work, who quickly outpaces his master despite his goutiness, is terrified by an animal unlike his white lapdog. Baba and Augurinus are chosen as companions for the title character of this work, which takes place in mid-October. After injuring himself while farting, the title character provokes an argument in the Senate house and tries to have the goddess Fever beheaded. Later in this work, the title figure is made to gamble with a bottomless dice-box to atone for his sins, which include the murder of Messalina. FTP, name this work by Seneca that depicts the afterlife of the emperor Claudius.
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One collection of poetry in this language states that "one grain of rice will make up each man's measure" and describes an unjust king's arrival to a shrine where the prophet John's body is contained. This language was used to write the book Advantages of Silence by the author ofThe Rose Garden. In a narrative poem written in this language, a stepson uses the trial by fire to escape from the lust of his stepmother. Another poet in this language wrote "Our Death is our Wedding" and "A Star Without a Name," composed the epic Spiritual Couplets, and popularized the ghazal form. Landmarks in this language's medieval corpus include theDiwan by Sa'di. For 10 points, name this language used by Rumi, as well as by Ferdowsi for the Shah Nameh and an author who wrote about "a loaf of bread" and "a jug of wine" in the Rubiyat.
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One episode in this novel sees a man decide to stop praying after he bonks his nose on the ground and precious gems fall out of it. The protagonist's grandparents met because he was her doctor, but he was only allowed to see various parts of her body through a sheet with a small hole cut in it. The protagonist's wife is referred to as a "dung princess," and another character married to Wee Willie Winkie dies after childbirth. Mary Pereira causes the central child-swapping in this work, which includes characters like William Methwold, Aadam Aziz, and the Brass Monkey. For 10 points, name this novel about Saleem Sinai, who was born at the title hour, by Salman Rushdie.
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One fateful morning, the protagonist awakes feeling "completely spattered with bird shit," and grabs Divina Flor, the daughter of his kitchen servant, by the pussy. His troubles had begun a day earlier when the wealthy Bayardo San Roman returns his apparently impure bride to her mother Pura, who deals her a savage beating. Angela Vicario then fingers the protagonist as the man who deflowered her, whereupon her twin brothers Pablo and Pedro stab him to death. The death of Santiago Nasar, FTP, is foreshadowed by the narrator of what novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
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One figure by this name wrote the oldest known Hebrew text on geometry, but a more famous figure by this name was the son of Hachaliah. He incurred dishonor by disparaging his predecessors, including Daniel, and after his death, his homeland was annexed to the satrapy of Coele-Syria. He was antagonized by the false prophetess Noadiah while rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, a task he undertook when he was made the tirshatha of Judea by his employer, Artaxerxes I. For 10 points, name this Biblical figure, an opponent of interfaith marriage whose namesake book was compiled by the same figure who put edited Ezra and Chronicles.
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One novel by this author follows a cult led by Galileo Gall and Antonio Conselheiro that believes the world will end at Ganudos Ranch. He wrote of Lituma losing a game of Russian Roulette in Don Anselmo's title whorehouse in another novel. This author of The War of the End of the World and The Green House wrote of Cava, who steals an exam for the Jaguar while a cadet at the Leoncio Prado military academy. In another of his novels, Uncle Lucho's divorced sister-in-law hires Pedro Comacho to write various novellas for broadcast on Radio Panamerica. For 10 points, name this Peruvian author of The Time of the Hero and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.
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One of his teachers in college once told him of the importance of kissing in American culture, prompting him to practice on an oak tree. He had reluctantly enrolled in college because his goal of becoming a forest ranger required that he learn Latin, but after switching to French literature he wrote a national award-winning story about a boy's friendship with an African-American POW entitled "The Catch." Later works like "A Personal Matter" often deal with the birth of his brain-damaged son. FTP, name this 1994 Japanese Nobel Laureate, author of "The Silent Cry".
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One of his works, De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus, describes the evolution of the Roman language. Another contains short biographies of literary figures and is entitled De Viris Illustribus. While we only have fragments of these two texts, the most famous writings of this personal secretary of the Emperor Hadrian are almost completely extant. Included in those writings are the tales of lechery at Capri in Tiberius' villa. FTP, what Roman biographer provided a vivid picture of 1st-century emperors in his De Vita Caesarum or The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
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One of the characters in this novel does not "have lips to talk with." A major digression occurs when the author describes the entire pamphlet entitled "The League of the Divine Wind," which represents the right-wing ideals of the main character. Based in part on the author's earlier short story "Patriotism," it centers on the relationship between the lawyer Honda and Isao Iinuma, the embodiment of purity and samurai dedication to Japan. Isao is clearly a reincarnation of Matsugae Kiyoaki, the protagonist of a novel which appeared one year earlier. FTP, name this novel taking place chronologically after Spring Snow, the second in Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy.
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One of the main characters discovers that her husband is having an affair with Barbara Lynch and goes off to live with her cousin Hildebranda. Another main character inherits a riverboat company upon his Uncle Leo's death and causes the death of his final love affair América Vicuña. This novel begins with the suicide of Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, and is quickly followed by the death of Juvenal Urbino, which leaves Fermina Daza a widow. Florentino Ariza finally consummates his fifty-year love in, FTP, what novel by Gabriel García Márquez?
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One of the men killed in the murder at the center of this novel was an old classmate of the protagonist, but both later move from Siriana to the village of Ilmorog. That friend, Chui, was one of the brewery directors who died in the arson incident being investigated by Inspector Godfrey. Among the interrogated victims are the destitute shop owner, and Karega, who the main character tries to save from the wiles of the prostitute Wanja. Centering on the post-Mau Mau tensions of modern Kenya, FTP, identify this novel that tells the story of headmaster Munira, the most famous work of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o.
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One of the servants, Bia, says nothing, while the other, Kratus insists that the title character is guilty and must be punished. In this drama, Io describes how she was turned into a cow and guarded by Argos, but his death resulted into a gadfly constantly chasing her, and she describes her torture as a yoke, a recurring symbol. Angered by her suffering, the title character claims that Zeus' son will eventually topple him, as Zeus is nothing but an idiotic tyrant who has ordered Hephaestus to imprison of the title character for the crime of giving fire to man. FTP, name this play about a certain Titan, written by Aeschylus.
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One of the title characters is sacrificed by the order of Neoptolemus on his father's grave. Another is dragged off into sexual slavery by the commander of the victorious enemy. Another, who only marginally belongs to the group, is inexplicably spared by her cuckolded husband. Another sees her son, Astyanax, thrown from the walls of the ruined city in order to end the royal line. FTP, name this play, which was first produced shortly after the Athenians captured the city of Melos, a tragedy by Euripedes.
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One of them written to the author's wife claims that his love for her is greater than the Clarian poet's love for Lyde or Bittis's for Coan. Another reminds Perilla that she is getting old, and encourages her to keep writing poems. Yet another notes that the name of the place where they were written derives from the murder of Absyrtus there by his sister. In Book Five, the author notes that hordes of Sarmatae and Getae live in a certain town and regrets missing his wife's birthday. While they were written, the author wrote a similar set of poems which were each addressed to a named person, and also wrote a long poem in the form of a curse, the Ibis. The first book of them was finished in 9 AD and sent to Rome from a town on the Black Sea. FTP, name this book of poems which laments the author's exile at Tomis, a work by Ovid.
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One of this author's characters finds the erotic handbook Eros Himself, which leads him to discover his son Terry is gay. In another novel a man dream that pigs' blood covers his penis, but later realizes it was his wife's menstruation; and that wife recalls looking at a photo in Life magazine showing herself as a child with her servant Lydia, who holds her backpack. This author wrote about Paul Bannerman's struggle with thyroid cancer in Get a Life. She wrote a novel ending when Maureen runs toward a helicopter after Bamford's gun is stolen by a tribesman. For 10 points, name this South African author who wrote about Mehring in The Conservationist and the Smales family in July's People.
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One of this author's novels features a despot who has the power to declare any month in the year the seventh month and is opposed by the movement for the voice, which gains traction when the despot loses his voice. In addition to Wizard of a Crow, this author wrote about a group of people who meet on a bus en route to the “Devil's Feast†in Devil on the Cross. A family is forced to give up their farmland after the titular action falls through in his best-known drama, I Will Marry when I Want. A Derek Walcott poem provides the title of this man's novel about the circumstances surrounding a brothel fire in Ilmorog, while the betrayal of the resistance fighter Kihika by the putative hero Mugo is central to his most famous work. For 10 points, name this Kenyan author of Petals of Blood and A Grain of Wheat.
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One of this author's short stories centers on a young student hiking in the title peninsula who is taken aback, then relieved, when he sees a young girl running naked from a bathhouse. This author described a man who falls in love with a woman's earlobe in "Her Husband Didn't," which appears in his short story collection First Snow on Fuji. This author wrote about the schoolteacher Gimpei Momei in The Lake, and about Eguchi, who spends the night with narcotized young women, in The House of the Sleeping Beauties. Another of his novels chronicles the relationship between the geisha Komako and Shimamura. For 10 points, name this Japanese author of The Master of Go and Snow Country.
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One of this author's short stories concerns a petitioner and a cleaning woman, who tries to answer his petition for a boat, while one of his novels ends on April 25th, 1974, the date of a revolution in this writer's home country. He set one of his novels in a location taken from a Platonic allegory, and Azio Corghi based a 1989 opera on this man's Memorial of the Convent. Another of this man's novel is set in 1936, when the title character returns home after 16 years abroad and wanders the city with the ghost of the poet Fernando Pessoa. More famous is a novel which depicts a landmass that detaches from a continent, forming the titular object, and another work about an illness that leaves people able to see only white light. Also the writer of Baltasar and Blimunda, for ten points, identify this author of The Stone Raft and Blindness.
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One of this author's stories is set during the Festival of Summer in a city whose grandeur rests entirely on the privations of a feeble-minded child kept locked up in a tiny room; the child's plight occasionally leads an inhabitant of the title city to leave for the mountains. In addition to "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," she wrote a novel set on the planet Urras and its moon Anarres. A daughter of the dragon Kalessin is the title character of another of her novels, which continues the storyline of an early trilogy focusing on the wizard Sparrowhawk in such novels as The Farthest Shore and The Tombs of Atuan. FTP, name this author of Tehanu, The Dispossessed, and The Earthsea Trilogy.
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One of this man's novels consists entirely of the dialogue between a young history professor named Larry and the elderly amnesiac Ramirez, whose wheelchair Larry pushes around New York City three times a week. Other works include Pubis Angelical, Blood of Requited Love, and a novel about the relationship between Gladys Hebe D'onofrio and Leo Druscovich. Nene Fernandez sends a series of letters to Leonor declaring her love for Leonor's dead son Juan Carlos Etchepare in Heartbreak Tango, but he is better known for novels about the movie buff Toto Casals and the political prisoners Valentin and Molina. FTP, name this Argentinean author of Betrayed by Rita Hayworth and Kiss of the Spider Woman.
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One of this man's novels features a disease in which the afflicted can only say "if and only if", as is the case with Titus and many others in Aburiria, while one of his plays ends with Thoni's suicide due to the eloping of her husband Remi, the title character. In addition to The Wizard of the Crow and The Black Hermit, this author also wrote a play in which the wedding between the son of Jezebel and Ahab Kioi and Gathoni forces the main character to sell his farm. Before writing I Will Marry When I Want, he wrote a novel in which Inspector Godfrey investigates the burning of the brothel of Ilmorog and another in which John Thompson catches the killer of Thomas Robson thanks to Mugo's betrayal. FTP, name this author of Petals of Blood and A Grain of Wheat, a Kenyan writer.
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One of this man's poems is addressed to an "Ox that I saw in my childhood," while in another the speaker exclaims "The clock has rung three-If only it were She!" and describes himself as the "auto-Hamlet." One of his works quotes Poe's "Ulalume" by declaring "with Psychis, my soul," and in a book of criticism he notably placed Poe among the titular "Rare Flowers." Early in his career this man published a novel in which the villainous gambler Ernesto pursues the titular English girl, Emelina, but it was praise from critic Juan Valera that helped launch this author's best-known work. "Symphony in Gray Major" stands out among his Prosas Profanas, and he calls the title figure an "Alexander-Nebuchadnezzer" and scolds him for his imperialism in his To Roosevelt. For 10 points name this author of Azul, known as the father of Modernismo in his native Nicaragua.
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One of this man's protagonists makes references to cases like “the Trevor Richardson affair.†That protagonist, nicknamed “Puffin,†encounters a wounded soldier whom he believes to be his childhood friend Akira in one of this author's works, and later learns that the warlord Wang Ku kidnapped his mother. This creator of Christopher Banks wrote a work titled after a Judy Bridgewater song that opens at Hailsham, and sees Kathy become a “carer†while Ruth and Tommy become donors. This author of When We Were Orphans is best-known for a novel that explores the unrequited love of Miss Kenton and the protagonist, who works at Darlington Hall. For 10 points, name this author of Never Let Me Go and a novel about the butler Stevens, The Remains of the Day.
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One of this man's protagonists sees a giant chrysanthemum that irradiates everything at the exact moment his father dies, and he wrote a short story in which a young boy named Harelip helps attend to a shot-down black airman. In one of his novels, a man named Bird desires to flee to Africa instead of facing his handicapped newborn son. He also wrote a novel in which Mitsusaburo and Takashi return to their great-uncle's village, in which the protagonist first thinks of the titular sound when he finds his friend hanged with a cucumber up his anus. For 10 points, name this Japanese author of Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, A Personal Matter and The Silent Cry.
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One of this novelist's characters, Hilario Sacayon, may be drawn from the travels of Eugene O'Neill. Juan Girador and The Mirror of Lida Salt are continuations of his first collection, which includes tales like "El Cadejo" and "The Treasure of the Flowered Lake." Variations of these stories also appear in his novel about Celestino Yumi's encounter with the demon Tazol, Mulata, and his story of the rebellion of Gaspar Ilóm. His other important works include The Bejeweled Boy and a novel based on the dictatorship of Manuel Cabrera. FTP, name this author of Men of Maize and El Señor Presidente, a Guatemalan writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1967.
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One of this work's characters is interrupted repeatedly with the phrase "lost his oil jar," while another is made to understand human desire by analogy to his love of pea soup. After the central character dons the robe of the pea-soup-loving character, he is accused of stealing Cerberus by Aeacus, leading him to switch costumes with his servant, Xanthias. The central conflict is eventually resolved by considering what to do with Alcibiades and with the weighing of verses. FTP, identify this work culminating in the return to Athens of the victorious Aeschylus; an Aristophanes comedy in which Dionysus enters the underworld to fetch Euripides and, while crossing the River Acheron, meets a chorus of the titular amphibians.
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One poem by this man blames political unrest on his father drunkenly interrupting a Perahara procession. This author of “Letters and Other Worlds,†which appears in his collection Rat Jelly, penned a work in which the Storyville photographer E. J. Bellocq befriends the jazz cornetist Billy Bolden. This author wrote a novel in which a pair of anthropologists, the title character and Sarath Diyasena, discover and attempt to identify a skeleton nicknamed “Sailor.†Another work by this author of Coming through Slaughter contains such characters as the crippled thief Caravaggio and the nurse Hana, and features extended flashbacks depicting on Katharine Clifton's affair with Almasy. For 10 points, name this Sri Lankan-born author of Anil's Ghost and The English Patient.
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One prominent commentator on this work, Rouge Inkstone, is the namesake of the best-known manuscripts of its first 80 chapters. Some comic relief in this work is provided by the visits of the protagonist's rural relatives Ban'er and Granny Liu. Much of this novel is set in an area built at the instigation of the eldest of the four Springs, called Prospect Garden. Its protagonist's primary handmaidens are known as Aroma and Skybright. One of its protagonist's love interests is the reincarnation of the Crimson Pearl Fairy. Its protagonist is a reincarnation of a piece of jade not used by Nuwa, amd marries Xue Baochai but cannot forget his true love, Lin Daiyu. For 10 points, name this Cao Xueqin [shway-cheen] novel that centers on Baoyu, the heir to the declining Jia family.
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One work in this form points out that that people must continue "to earn their own living" because no one can "eat bread without paying." Another suggests that "to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife." Another of these is written on behalf of a slave and advises the slave's owner to treat Onesimus as if he were the author. Another of these exhorts its readers to "work out salvation with fear and trembling" and their author advises arming oneself with the "helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" in one written to the Ephesians. For 10 points each, Galatians, Philippians, and Romans are all examples of what type of communication by a certain early Christian apostle?
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Romare Bearden's painting Blue is the Smoke of War, White the Bones of Men is named for a poem by this author. This poet asked "When shall I reach the top and hold all mountains in a single glance?" in his poem "A View of Taishan." In another of this author's poems, a soldier asserts that "the frontier posts run with enough blood to fill an ocean / and the war-loving Emperor's dreams of conquest have still not ended" after Xian-yang bridge is covered with dust kicked up by the title objects, which "rumble and rattle." In his home country, this author is known by the epithets Shishèng and Shishi, which translate to "sage poet" and "poet historian." He wrote war poems such as "A Song of Chariots" after being captured by rebels during the An Lu-Shan rebellion. For 10 points, name this Confucian Tang Dynasty poet who wrote many poems about his friend Li Po.
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She gets her chance about three years after the slave Mes'ud is discovered taking part in an orgy. Her father tells her the cautionary anecdote of the Ass and the Bull and the husbandman, but she forges ahead with her younger sister's help. Her target is the king of an unnamed island between India and China, and she bears him three sons before wrapping things up with "Ma'ruf the Cobbler." Starting off with "The Story of the Merchant and the Jinni," FTP name this wife of Sharyar and sister of Dunyazade, the narrator of the Thousand and One Nights.
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She meets the son of Pandion, who has come from Delphi seeking a remedy for his infertility, which she offers to cure with drugs if he will take her in after her impending exile. For Creon, the father of her husband's new woman, is pushing her out of Corinth, which he rules. Before she left, though, she had the other woman killed by poison put on a gift of a crown that her children have, who she also slew. FTP, name this subject of a Euripides play, the troublesome wife of Jason.
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Tenorio's shooting of the title character's owl is what ultimately brings about her death. Earlier, the protagonist goes with his friend Cico to see the golden carp, though he cannot reconcile it with his Catholicism. He is also troubled by his older brothers' return from World War II, and their lack of respect for their father Gabriel. It is such moral questions that plague him, leading the title character to divine that he is fated to be a man of learning. FTP, identify this novel about Antonio Marez and the title faith healer, written by Rudolfo Anaya.
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The best known work of this author was attacked by Germaine Greer for misrepresenting the city in which she had spent four months teaching upper-class women. This author responded by satirizing Greer in a work featuring an ailing former English professor who is cared for by his daughter, Roxana. The short story "Squatter," which centers on an emigrant who is unable to evacuate his bowels on a foreign country's toilet, was included in his first collection, Tales from Firozsha Baag. This author of a novel about Gustad Noble, Such a Long Journey, is better known for a work set during the state of emergency declared by Indira Gandhi in 1975. FTP, name this author of the recent Family Matters, a Canadian who was born in India and who also wrote the novel A Fine Balance.
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The eighth of them begins by asking Ponticus about the value of family trees, and concludes that it would be fine to have Thersites for a father so long as one resembles Achilles oneself. The first of them expresses the author's boredom at poetry readings, such as those given by Cordus, while the second expresses a wish to get away from hypocritical talk of morality that serves as a front for sexual perversity. While speaking of a special privilege accorded to soldiers, the sixteenth and last breaks off abruptly. More famous are the third, in which a friend of the author leaves for Cumae, and the tenth, which Samuel Johnson adapted as The Vanity of Human Wishes. FTP, name this collection of acerbic poems by the Roman poet Juvenal.
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The eighth of them is also known as "Pharmaceutria," for its magical refrains, while the sixth is derivative of Lucretius and known as the "Song of Silenus." The tenth one is dedicated to Gallus, while the fourth, which predicts the birth of a child who will bring peace to the world, is thought to prophecy Christ's birth. FTP, identify this group of ten poems, based on the idylls of Theocritus and written between 43 and 37 BC by Virgil.
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The end of this novel features a discussion of Chijimi linens as well as a scene in which a main character falls and "the Milky Way flow[s] down inside him with a roar," which follows the burning of a silk warehouse used as a movie theater. Its protagonist claims to be an expert on Western ballet, but has never seen an actual performance. While on a train to an onsen town, the protagonist encounters a tubercular man and a woman, who later offers to be his maid, Yukio and Yoko. For 10 points, name this Yasunari Kawabata novel in which the geisha Komako has an affair with Shimamura, while hanging out at hot springs in the titular wintery region.
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The engagement to Dr. John Brown is broken after the protagonist's love returns and takes her virginity. The temporary pregnancy is terminated when the ghost of Mama Elena is banished. Esperanza, born to Rosaura and Gertrudis, who was inspired by a dish made with rose petals to join a band of revolutionaries, returns to witness the eventual coming together of Pedro with the youngest daughter and cook of the De Garza family. FTP, identify this novel written in "monthly installments" whose chapters are preceded by the recipes that the long suffering Tita prepares, a work by Laura Esquivel.
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The epigraph to this short story comes from The Anatomy of Melancholy, and it discusses a book that contains the letters M C V repeated as well as the phrase "O Time Thy Pyramids." The author also describes the possibility of what he terms "Vindications", which tell the future. In a footnote, the author states that the title entity is unnecessary, as Alvarez de Toledo noted it would be equivalent so a single volume of infinite pages, all infinitely thin. FTP, identify this short story about a building housing every combination of possible books, written by Jorge Luis Borges.
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The extended subtitle on this novel's title page describes the author's plans to move to a new village and leads into a quote by Yuri Gagarin that states "the world is blue." One woman in this novel is described as "an Ash Wednesday" and "born to be a stepmother," and is heard thanking the saints for killing her cheating son-in-law. One of the title characters is a bassoon player who gives speeches against pharmaceutical corporations. The other has a cassava tied to his skirt while he is dressed as a woman and dancing a samba which kills him during Carnival. A year after one man's death in this novel, that man begins to materialize on the bed, repeatedly seducing his widow in Bahia. Vadinho and Teodoro Madureira comprise the men mentioned in the title of, for 10 points, what novel by Jorge Amado?
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The family at the center of this novel escapes from danger at the beginning by driving away in a "bakkie", which the father had intended for weekend bird-hunting expeditions. The novel ends with Maureen rushing towards a helicopter in the hopes of escaping. Daniel teaches the title character, also known as Mwawate, how to drive the bakkie, and later steals the shotgun that is used to shoot pigs by Bamford. The Smales family is forced to leave their Johannesburg villa during a black uprising. FTP, identify this novel titled after the Smales' houseboy and written by Nadine Gordimer.
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The final draft of this work was prepared by a student of its author who wrote in its epilogue that "At times you will find yourself rising up to applaud. At other times you will quietly hang your head with emotion." After recalling a poet who wrote that "Countries may fall, but their rivers and mountains remain," the narrator of this work sits weeping at the ruins of the Castle-on-the-Heights, and many of the works in this collection exemplify a loneliness of man in the universe called sabi. At the beginning of this work, the author recalls the "many men of old" who "died on their travels," and wrote of "stretching to Sado Isle / the Milky Way" as he considers crossing the Shirakawa Barrier into Oku. For ten points, identify this travelogue detailing the author's trip with Kawai Sora to the titular location, the most famous work of Matsuo Basho.
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The final section describes the "dialectic" of the title condition and quotes Toynbee. The fourth discusses the importance of Guadelupe, the Virgin, and La Malinche and argues that incarnations of femininity embody the complications of a nation. Beginning with a quote about the untenability of "the other" from Antonio Machado, the author turns to the pachuco, who practices an extreme form of self-identification. This is followed by an argument about colonialism and the various masks, ranging from machismo to the cult of death, that citizens now wear in Mexico. FTP identify this essay that prescribes love and creativity to escape the titular structure, a work by Octavio Paz.
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The first death in this play occurs when the Second Servant is thrown from a balcony into the sea, and the only on-stage death is that of Clarion, who is shot while hiding from a battle. This convinces King Basil to surrender to his ill-omened son Segismund, whom he had imprisoned for years before making him king for a day to see whether he was fit to rule or even be set free. FTP, name this Calderon de la Barca play whose title sentiment is finally an impetus for Segismund to rule wisely, lest his happy fortune disappear.
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The fourteenth chapter states that "to leave a battle alive after their chief has fallen means lifelong infamy and shame," a passage that has been compared to the Old English "Battle of Maldon." The nineteenth chapter claims that adultery is punished by flogging and the loss of the woman's hair. Veleda and Aurinia are held up as examples of women with divine authority, while kings are chosen "for their noble birth." Later discussion of the fate of the Cimbri is used to criticize the Parthian policy of the emperor Trajan, since "freedom is capable of more energetic action than the Arsacid despotism." FTP, the moral corruption of Rome contrasts with the heroic virtue of the barbarians in this work by Tacitus.
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The fourth chapter, "At the Western Palace" refers to the tale of an emperor with four wives and serves as an analogy for the storyteller's sister. "Shaman", the third chapter, focuses on the author's mother, who was a doctor, midwife, and destroyer of ghosts in her village. "Better to raise geese than girls" is a phrase repeated throughout the book, highlighting the paternalistic nature of Chinese society. Revolving around the talk-stories of her mother, Brave Orchid, the work blends fact and fiction into an autobiography. FTP, name this memoir of Maxine Hong Kingston.
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The friendship between Polly O'Keefe and Max Horne forms the basis of Madeleine L'Engle's novel about one of these that is like a lotus. Tien Pao is adopted by a bomber squadron in a novel about the one "of sixty fathers" by Meindert de Jong, while a novel about the Malavoglia family by Giovanni Verga is known in English as the one "by the medlar tree." A relationship with Elizabeth Siddal inspired Dante Rosetti's collection about the one "of life," and a "green" one is erected by Don Anselmo in a novel by Vargas Llosa. For ten points, identify this kind of structure, which has seven gables in a Hawthorne novel and is the location of mirth in a work by Edith Wharton.
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The last of them begins "YES, I have deceived you; I have led away your eunuchs; I have made sport of your jealousy," and is written by Roxana. The 14th includes a discussion of the Troglodites, and the 81st famously includes the author's theories on government. Several were written in Tauris and the Seraglio at Ispahan. The 93rd discusses the death of Louis XIV, and is written by Usbek, one of the two main authors along with Rica. Published anonymously in 1721, FTP, name this series of 161 fictitious epistles, purported to be written by various Arabs, but actually written by Montesquieu.
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The last person to see the protagonist of this work was a station employee, who mistook him for a mountain climber with a painting set. One of his colleagues is an amateur psychoanalyst who claims that the protagonist's hobby indicates an Oedipus complex, but after seven years the protagonist is declared dead in compliance with section 30 of the civil code. At one point the protagonist, who isn't really dead, sets up a crow trap using a piece of fish for bait, and ends up collecting fresher water than he is used to drinking. The villagers offer to let the protagonist escape if he has sex in public, but when he tries to force the title character to do so she punches him in the stomach and bloodies his nose, after which the protagonist returns to shoveling sand. FTP name this novel about amateur entomologist Niki Jumpei, a retelling of the legend of Sisyphus written by Kobo Abe.
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The main character of this novel reaches a turning point in his life when he hears Joan Baez on the stereo for the first time. The argumentative couple Mahesh and Shoba often invite the main character to lunch, eventually revealing their sordid past. Father Huismans attempts to collect traditional African paraphernalia, while the main character's friend Indar invites him to the Domain, where he conducts an affair with Raymond's wife Yvette. Set in a village on the Congo River, FTP, identify this novel that centers on Salim, written by V. S. Naipaul.
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The main character of this work would have a cup of coffee with a shot of cane liquor every Monday, and goes home to change out of his riding clothes after being invited for breakfast by the narrator's sister. One character in this work writes to another for 17 years, though when the recipient comes to Guarija, the letters are all unopened. This work begins with the arrival of a bishop by boat, and later in this work, the main character tells his mother, Placida Linero, that he dreamt of walking through a forrest in the rain. The titular action takes place after a woman is returned home on her wedding night by Bayard San Roman because she is not a virgin. For ten points, identify this novel in which the deflowering of Angela is avenged by her brothers Pablo and Pedro Vicario on Santiago Nassar, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
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The main character wakes up at 5:30 after having a dream about trees and decides to go to his mother's to get an aspirin. The narrator's sister, Margot, invites the protagonist to her house, and feels jealous of his fiancée, Flora Miguel. Important symbols in this work include Bayardo's Model T, while important settings include Clothilde Armenta's milk shop, where a group of men obtain their implements of destruction from Faustino Santos. Although Colonel Lazaro Aponte could have prevented the title event, he decides to check on his dominoes game instead. Focusing on the Vicario brothers' avenging their sister Angela by killing Santiago Nasar, this is, FTP, what Gabriel Garcia Marquez novella?
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The narrator comments that light goes through his lover as if she were a translucent silkworm and that her mouth opens and closes "like a beautiful little circle of leeches." One character's singing is associated with an ancient chijimi weaver and this novel ends with a fire at a cocoon warehouse. The title character of this novel is extremely attached to a certain type of silk which is no longer made, and the narrator is unable to have sex with a girl after his image of her purity is tarnished. A side story in this novel is Kikuyu's, and its narrator writes about ballet but has never seen one. The son of one character's former music teacher is nursed by Yoko and he asks to see the geisha Komako before he dies. For 10 points, name this novel about Shimamura's visits to the title location, a work of Kawabata Yasunari.
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The narrator of this work recalls digging through the flooded Palace of Justice to recover 322 pages of a brief. One character in this work confuses the bad omen of birds with the good omen of trees when interpreting her son's dream. Another character in this novel writes weekly letters for seventeen years until her former lover returns them all unopened. Father Amador is distracted from its title event by the arrival of the bishop on a steamboat, and that event is sparked after Bayardo San Roman returns one character to her mother. The butcher Faustino is asked to sharpen two pairs of knives in this work; those knives are used by the Vicario twins after their sister Angela informs them that Santiago Nasar took her virginity. For 10 points, name this 1981 novella by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
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The narrator self-consciously corrects this story's assertion that the protagonist was waiting for the rain to stop. The protagonist of this short story has a pimple on his right cheek, and sees another character pulling out hairs from a pile of rotting corpses in order to make a wig. An earlier version of this short story's ending states that the protagonist hurries to Kyoto in order to become a thief. This short story focuses on a fired servant who steals an old woman's kimono at the title location. For 10 points, name this short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa set in the tower of the namesake gate.
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The only character that is constantly cheerful in this work is a servant boy named Gerasim. One of the title character's close friends meets a colleague named Schwarz, who winks at him and tries to arrange an evening game of bridge. After losing two promotions, the title character gets a new job when a man named Miller is replaced by his friend Zachar, who helps set him up in St. Petersburg. His wife Praskovya and their son Volodya come to live with him in their new house, but while he is attempting to show an upholsterer how to hang some drapes he falls, hitting his side on the knob of the window frame. The bruise he gets eventually grows, and he grows sicker until he expires. FTP, name this short novel by Leo Tolstoy that concludes with the title event.
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The play opens with a prologue spoken by Poseidon, who is then approached by Athena with a plan for bringing good fortune to her former enemies. The playwright wrote it in response to an event depicted in the fifth book of Thucydides's History, the annihilation of the natives of Melos. In it, Polyxena is sacrificed to the ghost of Achilles while Astyanax is thrown from the walls to end the royal line. Troy is burning and Hecuba, Andromache, and Cassandra are to be slaves, while Helen appears to ask for her life in order to represent the futility of the war fought for her. FTP, name this 415 BC play by Euripides, whose title refers to the aforementioned females.
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The protagonist of one of this man's works gives a jar to his friend instead of repaying a loan, and later dies after embezzling money in an attempt to buy out a courtesan's contract. Another of his works sees a man nicknamed “Hard Luck†stab a tobacco merchant in the head after drinking in a teahouse with Yojibei and Azuma. The title character of another work by this man is aided by the generals Kanki and Go Sankei in defeating the Manchu forces under Ri Toten. This author of The Courier for Hell and The Uprooted Pine also wrote a play in which the oil merchant Kuheiji scams Tokubei out of his dowry, after which Tokubei and Ohatsu kill themselves. For 10 points, name this author of such bunraku plays as The Battles of Coxinga and The Love Suicides at Sonezaki.
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The protagonist of this novel contemplates the etymology of the word "friend" while having tea with Bill Shaw and later has an affair with his wife during their sessions of "Lösung." He goes to a flat at Green Point on Thursdays to have sex with a prostitute named Soraya until he accidentally learns her true identity, after which he seeks the company of Melanie Isaacs. He visits his daughter in Salem, where he becomes a veterinary technician and befriends the bulldog Katy and the groundskeeper Petrus, but all falls apart when they are attacked by three men from the woods and Lucy gets pregnant. FTP, name this novel about the decline and fall of professor David Lurie; a work of J.M. Coetzee.
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The protagonist of this novel expresses his tiredness of boiled potatoes while eating with his friend Joseph. Afterwards, he sees his fiancée with Sam Okoli, the Minister of State, before getting an interview for his eventual job with Mr. Green at the Public Service Commission. Later on, the protagonist's grandmother plans to commit suicide if the protagonist marries the osu Clara, whom he had met while studying law in England, thanks to a scholarship from the Umuofia Progressive Union. Opening with Obi Okwonko's trial, the novel eventually shows how he came to taking bribes. For 10 points, name this Chinua Achebe novel, a sequel to Things Fall Apart.
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The protagonist of this novel gains favor with the emperor after dancing the "Waves of the Blue Sea" and reciting some of his poetry, but is almost ruined when he impregnates Fujitsubo, the emperor's concubine. The protagonist also messes around with Utsusemi and Yugao, much to the dismay of his wife, Princess Aoi. Fortunately, she dies at the end of the novel, so that the title character can marry his young ward who shares her name with the novel's author. FTP, name this 11th-century Japanese novel by Lady Murasaki Shikibu.
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The protagonist of this novel is annoyed by a letter from his wife suggesting he become a professional carpet painter. The protagonist sews pieces of bread into his mattress and carves a spoon out of aluminum, engraved with the phrase "Ust-Izhma". In this novel, Caesar Markovich gets into a debate about Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, while earlier, Snub Nose frightens Eino and his Estonian brother by nearly finding their cigarettes. The title character of this novel shares a cookie with his roommate, Aloysha the Baptist, and despises Fetyukov, who scavenges bowls after meals for extra rations. Centering on Gang 104, for 10 points, name this novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about the title character's life in a prison camp.
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The protagonist of this novel is repulsed by the thought of one character trimming hair from her breasts and wonders if any child she nursed became a monster. That character is dubbed "a neuter" by the protagonist because she supports herself and is no longer able to attract men due to a black birthmark. The protagonist feels that he is a man for the first time after sleeping with a woman who later overdoses on sleeping pills after sharing a sixteenth-century black bowl, Mrs. Ota. The title pattern is seen on a kerchief that Yukiko uses to carry a bundle to the Engakuji Temple, where Chikako is performing a tea ceremony for Kikuji Mitani. For 10 points, identify this novel by Yasunari Kawabata about a man who is surrounded by his dead father's mistresses.
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The protagonist of this story is disgusted when he learns that people from a bigger town call a "long bench" a "straight bench", and also refuses to say the words "ringworm", "bright", or "light". Its protagonist harasses a nun from the Convent of Quiet Self-Improvement after losing a fight to Whiskers Wang; later, he shouts "Sleep with me!" at the maid Amah Wu, causing him to be kicked out of the Chao household. At the end of this story, its title character is too preoccupied drawing a perfect circle to realize he's being executed. Its title character also hates on the "Imitation Foreign Devil" and attempts to join the Xinhai revolution. For 10 points, identify this story about an idler from Weichuang who rationalizes defeats as "spiritual victories", a work of Lu Xun.
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The protagonist of this work imagines inventing an anti-hypochondriacal poultice so that his name can be printed on medicine boxes, and later he regrets killing a black butterfly with a towel. While going to have his watch repaired, the protagonist meets his former lover Marcella. After establishing a trust fund for his lover's maid, the main character loses his chance at a political career when his fiancée marries Lobo Neves instead. After the death of his illegitimate child by Virgilia, the title character is shocked by a new watch that he receives in the mail from his old schoolmate Quincas Borba. Dedicated to "the first worm that gnawed on the cold flesh of my corpse," for 10 points, name this novel by Joachim Maria Machado de Assis.
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The real one exists inside a stone column of a mosque in Cairo, while the one in Calle Garay is false; nevertheless, it gains its owner, Carlos Argentino, second place in the National Prize for Literature. An inch in diameter, it is located on the nineteenth step of a basement stairway and simultaneously contains every element of the universe. FTP, identify this titular object of a Jorge Luis Borges short story and the namesake of a 1949 story collection, which shares its name with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
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The residents of the place in which this novel is set believe the protagonist will "go away with the wind" shortly after his arrival. That place is characterized by residents as a place of "stone, iron, concrete, and glass and neon lights." The protagonist went to high school in Siriana with two other characters-one who was expelled along with the protagonist and another who loved English literature. The latter, Chui, later became a greedy industrialist, working for a corporate brewery. Other characters include Joseph, the seven-year-old employee of the shopkeeper Abdullah, and Godfrey, who conducts the investigation of the central event in this novel. That event results in the arrest of three chracters plus the protagonist, Munira, who saw the title entities in the flames consuming Wanja's house. For 10 points name this novel by Ngugi wa Thiong'o.
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The second section opens with a couple dancing the tango before they are interrupted by the entry of the Sergeant. The image of a new plantain shoot withering to give sap to an older part of the plant foretells the passing of a young man, who returned from studying medicine in England to see that a certain ritual is carried out. Based on a 1946 event, during the final scene, an aristocratic woman and her husband, the meddling District Officer, are confronted by the "mother of the market" and asked about the honor of the white man.Its publication featured an Author's Note that warned against reducing the conflict to a "clash of cultures" as previous critics had done with the author's novel Season of Anomy. Set in Oyo, it ends when the title figure, ashamed at his earlier cowardice and the loss of his son Olunde, strangles himself, thus fulfilling the royal custom. For 10 points, identify this work about the struggles of Elesin Oba, who, as chief of the monarch's stables, is expected to commit suicide, a play by Wole Soyinka.
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The sixth chapter of this work describes how the taking of the Goose-Feather Armor by Shi Qian leads to the defeat of the army of Hu-yuan Zhuo. Later, Shi Qian is unable to restrain himself from stealing a cock, leading to the three attacks on Zhu Village by Song Jiang, the leader of the Liangshang Po. FTP, name this classic of Chinese literature describing the decline of the Song dynasty through the exploits of the title group of 108 bandits.
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The theme of passion in this novel is addressed by the character Professor Josué, who asserts that a lover should write a ballad, not a sonnet, for the title character. Set in the village of Ilhéus, a young cacao exporter arrives to relieve the town of control by various "colonels," including Manuel of the Jaguars, Jesuíno Mendonça, and Ramiro Bastos. The title character, the wife of Vesuvius Bar owner Nacib Saad, is a beautiful mulatto with equal skill in the kitchen and bedroom. Relating the reform efforts of Mundinho Falcão, FTP, identify this best known work of Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado.
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The title by which this work is known in English is not a literal rendering of its original-language title but was selected by the author because that title, which translates as "Towing in the Afternoon", contains a pun unique to Japanese. In it, Nobaru spies on his mother Fusako through a peephole into her bedroom and he and his friends gradually lose their respect for Fusako's lover, who stops being a hero when he proposes marriage to her and is eventually killed by Nobaru and crew. FTP name this work in which Ryuji is the depressed mariner suggested by its English title, written by Yukio Mishima.
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The title character and her husband are finally reunited at the hermitage of Mareecha, where the king discovers his son attempting to pry open the jaws of a lion. This drama centers on a lost ring that is rediscovered in the belly of a fish and reminds the king of his past. This play begins when the king Dushyanta enters the ashram of Kanva and falls in love with the title character. She promises to be his wife if her son is made heir to his kingdom and she gives birth to Bharata, founder of the race of modern India. FTP, identify this Sanskrit drama, the most famous work of Kalidasa.
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The title character encounters one of these figures in Julian Hawthorne's story "Ken's Mystery." A poem about this figure by Kipling begins by speaking about a fool who made his prayer to a rag and a bone and a hank of hair. One of these figures committed suicide by throwing himself into Mount Vesuvius years after he was shot by supporters of Oliver Cromwell. That man, the subject of a novel probably written by James Malcolm Rymer, was named Varney, though better known examples appear in novels by Sheridan Le Fanu and John Polidori. In novels by James Howe such as The Celery Stalks at Midnight, a lagomorphic version of it appears. FTP, identify this undead creature of the night, whose "chronicles" were written at tedious length by Anne Rice.
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The title character has an affair with Luke, who disappears in a botched escape attempt. The epilogue to this novel is delivered by Professor Pieixoto, who discovers the title character's story on some cassette tapes in Bangor, Maine. After training at the Rachel and Leah Center is complete, she is assigned to serve Serena Joy, whose husband The Commander allows her to play Scrabble despite a law making reading by females illegal. Narrated by the title character Offred, FTP, name this dystopian novel set in the Republic of Gilead, and written by Margaret Atwood.
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The title character is an orphan who is adopted by a baker and marries a slut named Elka. After her death, the Spirit of Evil persuades him to urinate in the bread he is baking for the people of Frampol, but he has a vision of hell that leads him to leave the town where everybody deceives him. FTP, identify this 1953 short story about a gullible man, originally written in Yiddish by Isaac Bashevis Singer.
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The title character is hounded by a man named Victor whose breath smells of onions. At the end of the novel, he watches three ships get bombarded by the fortresses in his city, and discovers that Daniel, the brother of the woman he has been sleeping with, is among the dead. His lover is a chambermaid named Lydia whom he met at the Hotel Braganca after coming to a European city following 16 years in Brazil, though he really loves a crippled woman named Marcenda. He spends much of the novel reading Herbert Quain's The God of the Labyrinth and writing poems, as well as talking to the recently-deceased author of Mensagem. FTP, name this book about a man who returns to Lisbon in 1936, the story of a heteronym of Fernando Pessoa written by José Saramago.
Oedipus at Colonus
The title character of this work goes to see a stranger at the altar of Poseidon, who turns out to be his son. Although the son desires the blessing of his father, he receives a curse instead. As the land where the title character dies is prophesied to be blessed, Creon kidnaps his daughters, attempting to thereby create fortune in his Thebes, but Theseus intervenes and the title character dies in a suburb of Athens. For 10 points name this last tragedy written by Sophocles.
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The title character of this work is called le phenix de la famille, referring to the likelihood of his success. The black sack into which the title character dreams he is falling represents the trauma of rebirth into an authentic life. The title character's friend, Peter, only appears in the first chapter, and while representative of the bourgeois society the author deplores, his last name and receptiveness to Gerasim's observation that God wills everyone to die hints at a possible future awakening. The title character realizes his contempt for his wife, Praskovya, and hope for his son, Vasya, while his health declines. For 10 points, name this Tolstoy novel about the demise of a Russian judge.
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The title character of this work takes command of the treasury, declares the assumption of civil authority, and fights off an advance by the Scythians. Lampito, a Spartan, was the first to support the title character's plan, but some supporters eventually used fear of the snakes and owls of the Acropolis as an excuse to abandon their cause, while others resorted to fake pregnancies. Eventually, the Spartans and Athenians did meet, but failed to sign an agreement ending their war. FTP, name this play by Aristophanes, in which women withhold sex as leverage to end war.
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The title character undergoes flashbacks after having been stricken by a gastric attack upon his return from a business trip to Hermosillo. One minor character in this novel is the mulatto peon Lunero, while the title character's secretary is Padilla, who plays a tape recording of various business deals. Lorenzo is killed in the Spanish Civil War, while Catalina and Teresa wait for the title character to die in the hopes they will secure his will. Centering on the demise of a rich Mexican tycoon, FTP, identify this most famous novel of Carlos Fuentes.
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The title characters are joined by Wang the Dwarf Tiger, one of the robbers of the Mountain of Clear Winds. Some of this novel's main characters include Sung Chiang, the Opportune Rain; and Ch'ai Chin, the Little Whirlwind. This novel begins with a military instructor escaping the persecution of Commander Kao to instruct the village lord's son Shih Chin, who later commands the bandits of Little Hua Mountain. FTP, identify this Chinese novel sometimes translated as All Men are Brothers or Water Margin.
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The title figure of this novel has a name meaning "Father of gods who can do anything in this world." He rescues a woman held prisoner by a Skull and captures Death in a net, and he uses his skills as a juju-man to change into a bird or a lizard. He can drink 225 kegs a day, but when his tapster dies, he travels to the Dead's Town to find him. FTP, what is this novel about the lover of a particular beverage that inaugurated English-language literature in western Africa, written by Amos Tutuola.
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The title figure of this work's alternate name had been imprisoned for 500 years by Kwan Yin, and is controlled by a magical hat that tightens when he does not follow instructions. Yet he becomes a hero after defeating the three magicians in Cart-Slow kingdom, thus allowing his party, which includes Sha, a monk, and Chu Pa-Chieh, a pig, to defeat the Great King Of Miracles and to ride the turtle to the Blessed Realm. In this way Tripitaka succeeds in his quest to obtain the three baskets of Mahayana scripture and bring them back to China. FTP, name this 16th-century novel written by Wu Ch-eng-en that was translated as Monkey by Arthur Waley.
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The title of one of his novels refers to the nickname given to Miu after she mentions that she is reading Jack Kerouac. Another title refers both to an illness that affects Siberian farmers and a song by Nat King Cole that has always fascinated Hajime (hah-gee-may). In one of his most popular novels, the protagonist's best friend commits suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide from his motorcycle, while the girl he loves develops mental problems and hangs herself. In addition to Sputnik Sweetheart and South of the Border, West of the Sun, this man's novels include one in which Toru Watanabe is prompted to reflect on his youth by hearing the Beatles song "Norwegian Wood." FTP, name this author of After the Quake and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, one of Japan's most inventive contemporary novelists.
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The titular figure's statement "Think upon me, my God, for good", has been called boastful by many Jewish leaders. In its longest segment it explains the location of the ten gates of Jerusalem and describes how the Jews rebuilt the walls of the city. In the Hebrew Bible it is included in the Ketuvim as part of the Book of Ezra, with whom it likely shares an author. It tells of a Babylon-born Jew who was cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes I, who assigned him to make a census of the Jews and organize them in preparation for possible Egyptian invastion, despite the interference of Tobias and Sanballat. For 10 points name this historical book of the Old Testament, which is followed by Tobit in the Catholic Bible and Esther in the Protestant Bible.
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The twentieth fragment from this play is a single word, "Arabus," and is sometimes rendered in translation as a type of perfume. Minor characters include the overseer Artamo and the tutor Lydus, who is appalled by his student's wantonness. The slave Chrysalus offers a discourse comparing himself to the heroes of the Trojan War, because he is able to defraud his master of two hundred philippi three times. In the last scene, the title characters seduce Nicobulus and Philoxenus, the fathers of their lovers, and take them to their brothel. FTP, name this Plautus comedy based on Menander's Twice a Swindler, in which Pistoclerus and Mnesilochus get together with the titular sisters.
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The word "wood" strung together eight times forms the first line of a Derek Mahon concrete poem depicting this type of object. James Russell Lowell titles an essay collection which includes "My Garden acquaintance" and "Abraham Lincoln" after a set of these in his study. Along with a sign, one of these is in the title of a work which features the Wally O'Hara Campaign song. Reverend Curtis Hartmann breaks a stained one in Winesburg, Ohio after seeing a woman in the nude. In a Lorraine Hansberry play, one containing a sign belongs to Sidney Brustein. One of these circumcises Tristram Shandy. One featured in a short story is entered by Ronnie and Mr. Sappleton, causing Framton Nuttel to flee the scene. For 10 points, name this portal that is “open†in a Saki short story.
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They appear in the prologue to Fulke Greville's Alaham and in Thomas Hughes's The Misfortunes of Arthur. In addition to Gorlois and the King of Ormus, one appears in Catiline which was singled out for special praise by T. S. Eliot in his essay on Ben Jonson. A duke of Genoa named Andrugio is one in John Marston's Antonio's Revenge, while another is the lover of Bel-Imperia, Don Andrea, who appears in the frame narrative of The Spanish Tragedy. One of them throws earth on Flamineo in Act V of The White Devil. In Act IV of Julius Caesar, one of them promises to see Brutus at Philippi. Another one sits in the title character's chair in Act III of Macbeth, while the most famous one threatens to tell a tale which would make his son's hair stand on end "like quills upon the fretful porpentine." FTP, name this type of creature who tells of being murdered by his brother Claudius in Act I of Hamlet.
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They can be broken up into seven parts of equal length known as manzi, or thirty parts of equal length known as juz, which can further be divided into ahzabs. Twenty-nine of them begin with letters known as fawatih, all of which contain a reference to Musa and the snake. The last two are often paired together, and the first one is recited at the start of each unit of prayer. All of them are divided into ayat, and all of them except the ninth begin with a statement called the bismillah, which says that they were issued in the name of God. Based on the city in which they were revealed, they can also be divided into Meccan ones, and Madinan ones. Numbering 114 in total are, FTP, what chapters of the Koran?
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This author created a protagonist who simply refers to himself as "boku" sees a ghost wearing a raincoat and slowly descends to insanity in his novel Gears, or Cogwheels. The fox turns into a messenger for Toshihito in another of this author's works, in which an ordinary samurai with a red nose, Goi, obsesses over the titular food. This author of "Yam Gruel" also wrote about a patient in the insane asylum, who talks about a water imp which refuses to be born, and he wrote about a monk dips a certain body part in hot water and has his disciples step on it in "Kappa" and "The Nose," respectively. This author of "In a Grove" may be best remembered for a work that was the basis for a Kurosawa film of the same name. For 10 points, name this author, the namesake of Japan's highest literary prize and the author of the short story "Rashomon"?
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This author denounced V. S. Naipaul for identifying with wealthy, modernized countries, and contrasted him with Narayan's interest in the people of Malgudi in his essay "Today, a Balance of Stories." He described a boy ashamed of writing about the harmattan in an essay about the function of the author, "The Novelist as Teacher." This author wrote that "art for art's sake is just another piece of deodorized dog-shit" and argued that Armah's novel The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born ignores the sickness of Ghana for the sickness of the modern world in "Africa and Her Writers." This founding editor of the literary magazine Okike wrote a novel in which Odo prostitutes his daughter Edna for money paid by Nanga, who maneuvers to win an election over Odili Samalu. The protagonist of another of his novels wins a scholarship from the UPU before returning to Lagos and taking bribes to pay for the abortion of his girlfriend Clara. For 10 points, name this author of A Man of the People, who wrote about Obi Okonkwo in No Longer at Ease, the sequel to his novel Things Fall Apart.
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This author depicts the revolt of a mother against her husband, a senior executive at the Engladia Insurance Company, in the novel The Dark Room. Such short stories as "A Breath of Lucifer" and "Uncle" were collected in a volume titled, "The Grandmother's Tale," which focuses on a girl who was married at seven and travels the sub-continent to find her husband. In another work by this writer a husband loses his wife, Susila, to typhoid fever and attempts to contact her beyond the grave. That novel, The English Teacher, was followed by a work that introduced the character Rosie, a dancer, whose career is managed by the rascally Raju who is mistaken for a swami in The Guide. For 10 points, identify this Indian author who set his works, including such other novels as The Financial Expert and The Painter of Signs, in the fictional town of Malgudi.
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This author derived the title of one book from the saying "I have lived inside the monster and know its entrails". This author wrote he will give the title object "to the true friend... And to the cruel one whose blows / Break the heart by which I live" in the poem "I have a white rose". Another work begins, "I am an honest man / From where the Palm tree grows / And before dying I want / To share the verses of my soul". This author of Ismaelillo asserted, "whatever is left of that sleepy hometown in America must awaken" in the essay "Our America" and his collection Versos Sencillos features the poem "Guantanamera". For 10 points identify this poet who wrote Versos Libres and died fighting for Cuban independence.
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This author described a woman who became the mistress of her late husband's father in his novel Thirst for Love and he detailed the relationship between Shinji and Hatsue in another novel. Noboru spies on his mother, who makes love to Fusako, in another work by this author, whose most autobiographical novel describes the confusion of Kochan. In addition to The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea and Confessions of a Mask, this author traced the life of Honda in a tetralogy named for a lunar mare (mah-ray). Another of his novels centers on Mizoguchi, a Zen Buddhist who burns down the title religious building. FTP, name this Japanese author of The Sea of Fertility and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
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This author described the title food as "the staff of life" made from "wood, cow dung, packed brown moss, the bodies of dead animals" in the poem "All Bread." Anna's best friend returns to her home in the wilderness to accept her father's death in Surfacing, while this author wrote about Simon Jordan's investigation of Grace Mark's innocence in Alias Grace. Snowman is the last human being on Earth in this author's Oryx and Crake, while Marian Macalpin creates the title entity in her novel The Edible Woman. Another of her novels is set in the Republic of Gilead and centers on Offred. FTP, name this Canadian author of The Handmaid's Tale.
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This author helped spread his philosophy by founding a school of thought at his estate of Santiniketan. One of his philosophical concerns was the concept of "bridal mysticism", which was outlined in his work Sadhana. However it was for poetry, in such collections as The Gardener and The Crescent Moon, that he became known. It was another collection, Gitanjali, that featured a poem that became his country's national anthem. FTP, name this writer who wrote in Bengali, the first non-European and Indian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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This author of works like In Pursuit of the English and This Was the Old Chief's Country was born in Iran in 1919 to British parents and moved to Zimbabwe at the age of 6. Largely self-educated, she moved to England and joined a Communist literary group, but became disillusioned and eventually left the Party. FTP, name this author of The Children of Violence series, and The Golden Notebook.
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This author once attempted to write a biography of Roy Campbell but gave up when, in his words, "I could not bring myself to admire him" due to Campbell's conservative politics. He describes his first marriage in Kontakion For You Departed and wrote his own biography in Towards the Mountain and Journey Continued. One of his novels discusses the relationship between Stephanie and Pieter van Vlaanderen, while another, inspired by Laurens van der Post's In a Province, examines the meeting of James Jarvis and Stephen Kumalo. FTP, name this leader of the South African Liberal Party and author of Too Late the Phalarope and Cry, the Beloved Country.
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This author once held diplomatic posts in Genoa, Nice, Lisbon, and Madrid, thanks in part to a Spanish, Basque, and Indian descent. Doris Dana and Langston Hughes translated portions of this writer's work writing into English, and works like "Tenderness," "Destruction," and "The Wine Press" highlight her common themes of children and the downtrodden. After releasing the 1922 collection Desolation, she ditched the name Lucila Godoy Alcayaga and went on to write her "Sonnets of Death." FTP name this Chilean writer, the first Latin American author to win the Nobel Prize.
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This author recounted selling his father's watch to go to Theater Street and see the titular play in his story Di Grasso, and a cripple in a wheelchair hits the narrator in the face with a pigeon in his "The Story of My Dovecot." A criminal who seizes power from his father is the protagonist of this man's plays, Sunset, and his only other work for the stage was part of a projected trilogy and was entitled Maria. This author's most famous protagonist earns the title "the King" for the way he acts after one of his men shoots Joseph Muginstein, and is a resident of the Moldovanka district, while another of his characters is a propaganda officer who reads a Lenin speech to the Cossacks after killing the title animal of the story, "My First Goose." For ten points, identify this author who created the Jewish gangster Benya Krik in his Odessa Tale, and wrote of his time spent with the Russian army in Poland in Red Cavalry.
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This author tried to integrate his unfinished religious epic poem The End of Satan into his historical poetry collection The Legend of Centuries. In another of this author's works, a fisherman tries to salvage a steam engine in order to marry Deruchette. A poem by this author promises that he won't look at the "distant sails going down at Harfleur." This poet of "Tomorrow, at Dawn" wrote a work in which a goat can spell “Phoebus,†leading the townspeople to believe its owner is a witch. Another work by this author features the evil Thenardiers and their three children, Azelma, Eponine, and Gavroche. For 10 points, name this author who created characters like Esmerelda, Inspector Javert, Quasimodo, and Jean Valjean, in Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables.
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This author was friends with the Monaco-born Countess de Bagnoregio, who moved to Pittsburgh after marrying a philanthropist. This author's early publications included a journal article in which he begins to advocate enriching chess by removing a rook, but eventually takes the opposing position and argues against his own suggestion. He also authored monographs on Leibniz and Ramon Llull. In 1918, this author attempted to forget over three hundred years of history and endeavored to fight Turks and Moors, resulting in the production of two chapters and a fragment of a third chapter of a text in which a knight-errant loves Dulcinea and accompanies Sancho Panza. For 10 points, name this writer, the titular "author of the Quijote" in a short story by Jorge Luis Borges.
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This author was strongly influenced by western writers, as indicated in the title of one of his early novels, Arise Ye Young Men, which was taken from Blake. His first novel, 1958's The Catch, was the story of a friendship between a black prisoner of war and a boy, and won the Akutagawa prize. His experience as the father of a brain-damaged child is reflected in A Personal Matter. FTP, name this author of The Silent Cry and Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize, the second Japanese author to win it.
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This author worked with Jonathan Demme on the documentary The Agronomist. In a work by this author, the word parsley cannot be pronounced correctly by the two main characters, a sugarcane cutter named Sebastian and a maidservant named Amabelle. The short story "Nineteen Thirty-Seven" follows a woman imprisoned and starved during a witch hunt and is found in a collection that follows the inhabitants of the town Ville Rose across several generations, entitled Krik? Krak!. The title of her most recent serious novel refers to the members of the Tonton Macoutes, and her most famous work tells the story of a twelve-year-old girl named Sophie, who comes to New York to be with Martine, her insomniac mother. FTP, name this author of Farming of Bones, Dew Breaker and Breath, Eyes, Memory who was born in Haiti.
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This author writes of a man who needs to visit his sick mother but is prevented by silly obstacles in "The Face and the Image," and tells of a desperately hungry man charged with delivering the letters of a doctor before the post office closes in "A Whole Loaf," which are contained in his Twenty-One Stories. The author of the collection At the Handles of the Lock and the novel A Guest for the Night, one of his more famous novels concerns a man berated by his wife Frummet who at last discovers treasure after seeking dowry to marry off his daughters. FTP, name this author of the novels Yesteryear and The Bridal Canopy, a Nobel winner with Nelly Sachs and a major figure of 20th-century Hebrew literature.
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This author wrote a novel in which Ganesh Ramsumair cures illnesses with his back rubs. In another of this author's works, a child observes a carpenter named Mr. Popo who never finishes his projects and a poet named B. Wordsworth who never finishes his poetry. In addition to writing The Mystic Masseur and Miguel Street, this author wrote a novel in which Big Man rules an unnamed African country inhabited by a shop owner named Salim. He wrote about Shama marrying a journalist named Mohun, who has six fingers and grows up with the Tulsis. For 10 points, name this Trinidadian author of A Bend in the River and A House for Mr. Biswas.
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This author wrote about Franz and Elizabeth's deaths at the Cholula pyramid in his novel A Change of Skin. In another of his novels, Federico Robles loses his wife and wealth in a house fire, while Pollo Phoibee falls into the Seine as the scene changes to the assassination of Tiberius Caesar in his novel Terra Nostra. This author of Christopher Unborn wrote about Felipe Montero's desire for the title girl, who transforms into a 109-year old woman, in his novel Aura. In another of his novels, the title revolutionary tycoon recalls his life while on his deathbed. FTP, name this Mexican author of Where the Air is Clear, The Old Gringo, and The Death of Artemio Cruz.
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This author wrote about Larry, who has to push the wheelchair of the aging politico Juan Ramirez in a nursing home. In one of this author's novels, the aging sculptures Gladys forms a sadomasochistic pair with her younger lover In addition to Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages and The Buenos Aires Affair, this author wrote about Big Fanny, who kills her unborn child, in addition to the tubercular Juan Carlos Etcheparre. In one of this author's novels, the protagonist Toto writes an essay about the film The Great Waltz, which features the title actress, while in another, Valentin is a political prisoner who is told stories about movies from the effeminate Molina. For ten points, identify this novelist who wrote Heartbreak Tango, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth and The Kiss of the Spider Woman, a writer from Mexico.
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This author wrote about a woman's relationship with her father in law and the gardener Saburo in Thirst for Love. One work by this author features a romance between Noguchi and the restaurant owner Kazu, and in another of his novels Ryuji is killed by Noboru, the son of his lover Fusako. One series of works by this author of After the Banquet features the character Isao Iinuma and describes the life of Shigekuni Honda. In another work by this author, the stuttering Mizoguchi burns down the title structure. For 10 points, name this Japanese author who wrote The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the Sea of Fertility tetralogy.
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This author wrote about men who throw coins into a woman's vagina to win two hours alone with her in the story "Toad's Mouth." Longer fiction by this author includes a work about Eliza Sommers, who follows her husband to California with the help of Tao Chi'en, as well as a work whose title girl is helped by Riad Halabi, Elvira, and Huberto Naranjo before meeting Rolf Carlé. In addition to Daughter of Fortune and Eva Luna, this author also wrote a novel about the downfall of the Trueba family after the death of Blanca's clairvoyant mother Clara, who lives in the title structure. FTP, name this magic realist Chilean author of The House of the Spirits.
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This author wrote about the flaring of Charu's emotions due to the arrival of Amal, her husband's cousin, in The Broken Nose. The author of such dramas as The Post Office and Red Oleanders, he wrote about an activist who longs for the wife of the noble Nikhil in his novel The Home and the World. He also authored the poetry collections Cycle of Spring, Sheaves, and The Golden Boat. His Janaganamana and Amar Shonar Bangla were adopted as national anthems, but he remains best remembered for a collection of 103 poems translated as "Song Offerings." A longtime friend of William Butler Yeats, this is, FTP, what Bengali author of Gitanjali?
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This author wrote about the orchestra director Gabriel Atlan-Ferrera's love for the titular soprano in Inez. He explored the history of his native country in two early works: one following Franz, Isabella, Javier, and Elizabeth as they drive to Cholula in a VW bug; and another featuring the god-like Ixca Cienfuegos as he interacts with the upper class after his country's revolution. After A Change of Skin and Where the Air is Clear, he expanded into Spanish history, specifically the building of the Escorial, in Terra Nostra. He is best known, though, for a novel written in all three voices about the last moments of a corrupt, wealthy politician who betrayed his way through the Mexican Revolution. FTP name this author of The Death of Artemio Cruz.
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This author wrote about two inmates who rehearse for a performance of Sophocles' Antigone every night, and another of this author's works features the attempts of Elsa and Pastor Byleveld to help Miss Helen. This author of The Island and The Road to Mecca wrote a work in which Styles photographs a man pretending to be the dead Robert Zwelinzima. He wrote about the bond between the brothers Zachariah and Morris. Another work by this author sees the servants Sam and Willie practice ballroom dancing. For 10 points, name this author of Sizwe Banzi is Dead and Blood Knot, an playwright from South Africa who wrote about Hally in Master Harold... and the Boys.
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This author wrote an epilogue that begins, "My work is finished now: no sword, nor fire, nor future / is capable of laying waste to it." The speaker of one poem asserts, "If Memnon's mother, if Achilles' mother, mourned for their sons" then "sad Elegia" must "unbind thy woeful hair in grief" to mourn for Tibullus. In a scene from one of his works, Tereus rips out the tongue of Philomela to prevent her from reporting a rape. This poet parodied the opening of The Aeneid in the first poem of his collection Amores, and he mourned his exile in Tomis in his collection Tristia. This poet's best-known work ends with a description of the apotheosis of Julius Caesar and includes the stories of Pyramus and Thisbe and Pygmalion. For 10 points, name this Roman poet who wrote The Metamorphoses.
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This author wrote of a character known as “superbrain†who participates in a title event after meeting Ambrosio at a dog pound. In another of his works, Fushia travels to a leper colony, Chapiro loses a game Russian Roulette to Lituma, and the harpist Don Anselmo runs the title bordello at the edge of the rainforest. This author of Conversation in the Cathedral and The Green House wrote about a series of cadets at The Leoncio Prado Military Academy in one work, and in another of his novels, Pedro Camacho writes radio soap operas and Mario falls in love with the older title character. For 10 points, name this Peruvian novelist of The Time of the Hero and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.
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This author wrote one detective novel, in which art critic Leo Druscovich kidnaps the sculptor Gladys D'Onofrio. In another of this author's novels, characters obsessively listen to the symbolic radio serial The Wounded Captain. That novel includes Celina impersonating her mother Leonor in order to write letters to Nene and the death of the policeman Francisco at the hands of Big Fanny, all of which happens due to the promiscuous affairs of the tubercular Juan Carlos Etchepare. This author described the cow-shooting plumber Josemar in Blood of Requitted Love, and also wrote Pubis Angelical in addition to a story about a student who composes the essay "The Movie I Liked Best," Toto Casals. For 10 points, name this writer of Betrayed By Rita Hayworth, who also created the cellmates Molina and Valentin in Kiss of the Spider Woman.
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This author's The Broken Nest deals with a runaway boy who is adopted by a kindly tax collector and named as his heir, but runs away again just as he is about to marry the tax collector's daughter. His dramas include such works as The Waterfall and The Sacrifice. His most important novel focuses on Nikhil's attempts to deal with the religious violence in his homeland and is called The Home and the World. His own translations of Lalan Shah would inspire the poems collected in The Golden Boat, while his 1912 collection of 103 poems, translated as Song Offerings, featured an ecstatic preface by William Butler Yeats that would bring him fame. FTP, identify this Bengali poet who wrote Gitanjali.
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This author's central characters include Masuji Ono, a painter whose wife is killed in a bombing raid and whose son is killed in Manchuria; Etsuko, a woman trying to deal with the suicide of her daughter Keiko; and, most famously, a repressed man named Stevens who leaves Darlington Hall to persuade Miss Kenton, the former housekeeper to return. FTP name this author of The Unconsoled, The Artist of the Floating World, A Pale View of Hills, and The Remains of the Day.
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This author's characters include a fired teacher whose obsession with blue eyes stems from his father's drowning death. That character, Gimpei, seduces Hisako in his magic realist novel The Lake. Chikako's birthmark is the life-vision of Kikuji in his novel based on The Tale of Genji. Much of his work, including the story of Eguchi's club The House of the Sleeping Beauties, is classified as neo-sensualism, but he's best known for portraits of loneliness and beauty like The Izu Dancer. FTP, name this imagist novelist of Thousand Cranes, The Sound of the Mountain and The Snow Country, who won the Nobel Prize in 1968.
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This author's early essay "A Style Reader" is considered a classic of criticism. Showing the influence of Poe in his first stories, such as "The Tattooer", he soon developed a more traditional style described in his famous essay "In Praise of Shadows", which led to such middle-period novels as "Quicksand" and "Some Prefer Neddles", while an analysis of human sexuality concerns his last two novels, "The Key" and "Diary of a Mad Old Man". Often cited as the best modern Japanese novelist, FTP, who was this author of "The Makioka Sisters"?
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This author's early travails contributed to his pseudonym, which means "the bitter one." Some of his works helped to found the socialist realism movement, including Queer People, Enemies, and The Last One. His first play, The Smug Citizen, garnered much attention for depicting the worker as superior to the intellectual, but he is most famous for his second play. FTP, identify this Russian playwright of The Lower Depths.
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This author's innovative writing style was important in the development of poetry in both Spain and Latin America. Born in 1867, he began traveling the world, and while in Buenos Aires organized a group of followers who established the Spanish-American modernist movement, a synthesis of romanticism, Parnassianism, and the symbolist movement. His first collection of poetry, Azul, was published in 1888, and his best piece would come 22 years after that. FTP, name this poet, whose best work was Poem of Autumn, born Felix Ruben Garcia-Sarmiento.
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This author's lesser-known works include a monograph on Raymond Lully's Ars magna generalis and a technical article on the possibility of improving chess by eliminating one of the rook pawns. He transposed Le Cimitière Marin into alexandrines and wrote an invective against its author, Paul Valéry, but other of his poems were withheld by Madame Henri Bachelier. This author's line "truth, the mother of history" is "almost infinitely richer" than the same line written by a seventeenth century author, because it adds to the "art of reading" the technique of "deliberate anachronism." For 10 points, name this fictional author who attempts to rewrite Don Quixote in a short story by Jorge Luis Borges.
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This author's magnum opus was first pieced together by Zacharias Kalliergis. One of his epigrams states that he is the son of Praxagoras, and in his greatest work he is known as Simichidas. His residence at Alexandria is supported by an epic honoring the marriage of Arsinoë to Ptolemy Philadelphus, and his encomium to Hiero II confirms his birth in Syracuse. A lament for the shepherd Daphnis is the subject of his first work, Thyrsis, though his best is a poem set on Cos that praises his teacher Philetas, the Harvest Feast, part of a collection that inspired Vergil's Eclogues. FTP, name this pastoralist author of the Idylls.
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This author's novel Mr. Stone and the Knight's Companion marked a change in style from his first three novels, The Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira, and Miguel Street. His recent work includes the novel A Way of the World, and he won a Booker Prize for In a Free State, but he is better known for works like A Bend in the River. FTP, who is this Trinidadian novelist, author of A House For Mr. Biswas and winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in literature?
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This author's stories include a one centered on a dying woman who beseeches the narrator to dig her grave with a "large pearl oyster shell," as well as a tale about a father trying to abandon his child in a forest. Both of those works were published in the collection Ten Nights' Dreams. An unemployed man goes to visit a hospitalized man to blackmail him in the novel Light and Darkness. In another work, a student befriends a Sensei, who reveals a love triangle that featured his best friend K and his landlady. Another novel contains the characters "Porcupine" and "Redshirt" and the protagonist's times as a teacher in Matsuyama. His major work features a nameless narrator who leaves behind the alley life and is adopted by the family of a man with digestive difficulties, whom he dubs Mr. Sneeze. For 10 points, identify this Japanese author of the aforementioned works Kokoro, Botchan, and I Am a Cat?
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This author's work for the stage includes a drama based on the lives of the Strickland family, At My Heart's Core, and a play about a Welshman who correctly predicts political futures, A Jig for the Gypsy. This author's non-fiction includes the volumes The Well Tempered Critic and the posthumous The Merry Heart. This author created Mrs. Bridgetower, who leaves her inheritance to the budding opera singer Monica Gall, in A Mixture of Frailties, while in another work he tells the story of Urquhart McVarish who crosses paths with art historian, Francis Cornish; that novel, Rebel Angels, was the first in a series inspired by his time teaching at Massey College. Perhaps best known for his novels about Dunstan Ramsay, whose story is introduced in Fifth Business and told in two more volumes of the Deptford Trilogy, for 10 points, identify this Canadian author of The Manticore and The Lyre of Orpheus.
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This epic poem was published in two parts, appearing in 1873 and 1879. The poem employs many terms of the slang dialect such as "la tacaura" for a weapon used by the local Indians, and "pito" for a kind of knife blade used by the hero. The title character's adventures begin when he is drafted after not having voted in the elections. The title character's companion Cruz dies from smallpox and his son Picardia is later encountered. Centered on the search for the title character's two missing sons, FTP, identify this poem by José Hernández, considered the prime example of Gaucho literature.
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This figure is overcome with humility upon reaching Vulture Peak as it reminds him of his birth on the "Mountain of Flowers and Fruit." This figure's most famous accessory can grow or shrink to any size, and his more notable abilities include seeing evil auras and performing "cloud somersaults." He spends time being cooked in a cauldron for 49 days and buried under a giant mountain, but on his most famous endeavor, he is joined by two other divine troublemakers with names usually translated as "Pigsy" and "Sandy." Together, they assist Xuanzang in returning the sutras from India. FTP, identify this simian badass who provides an alternate title to Wu Cheng-en's Journey to the West.
Acmeism
This literary group's belief in the poet's role as a craftsman and the need for concrete language in poetry can be seen in such works as "Tristia" and "Foreign Sky". Centered in Saint Petersburg and associated with the magazine "Apollo", its founder was Nikolai Gumilyov, while its greatest member was Gumilyov's wife. For 10 points name this early 20th century literary movement, that included the poets Sergei Gorodetskii and Osip Mandelshtam, as well as Anna Akhmatova.
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This man adopted his rival's play Berenice into Tite and Berenice, a work about Titus's marital follies. Pauline and Felix decry the title character of another of his works for converting to Christianity, but when that Armenian gets martyred, they convert too. This author of Polyeucte wrote of the Comte de Gormas's daughter, who confides in Elvira that she loves the title character, but demands that he duel Don Sancho to avenge her father. That work centers on Chimène and Rodrigue, who is given the title epithet after earning honor in war against the Moors. For 10 points, name this author of Le Cid.
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This man appears in a work set in "a fair oasis of the purest desert," and a novel with this title sees Miriam's father come to grips with his son Menuchim being retarded. In a third work, another character based on this man meets a downtrodden balloon seller and a sardonic popcorn vender named Zuss and Nickles, respectively. Robert Frost's blank verse comedy A Masque of Reason focuses on this man, as does Joseph Roth's novel about Mendel Singer. A man who sees his children killed by war, drunk drivers and murderers is based on, FTP, what Biblical character whose story is retold in Archibald Macleish's play J.B.?
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This man borrowed from Othello to write his poem "Goats and Monkeys," and asked, "Where shall I turn, divided in the vein," in a poem from his collection Two Poems on the Passing of an Empire. His dramatic works include one about Henry Trewe and John Phillip inspired by Robinson Crusoe, and an adaptation of Tirso de Molina's The Joker of Seville. He wrote a play which ends with Makak's return, with the help of Moustique, to the titular geographical feature, as well as a transposition of the Odyssey into his native land. For ten points, identify this author of Dream on Monkey Mountain and Omoros, a native of St. Lucia.
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This man composed a 9000-line epic poem about Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Chapter 26 of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire contains a footnote about an early translation of this man's work, which was written by Captain Macan for the king of Oude. After being swindled by the treasurer Hasan Maimandi, this man entrusted a satirical verse to Ayaz in which he compared his first benefactor to a boundless sea. That benefactor, Mahmoud Ghazni, had originally intended to pay him a dinar for every couplet that he wrote. The epic he authored was a compilation of earlier work by Moses of Chorene and begins with the conflict between Kaiumers and Ahriman. FTP, name this poet who depicted the hero Rustem in his Shah Nameh, or Book of Kings.
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This man expresses his wish to be "buried in the ground like a stillborn child" and at the end of the book in which he figures, all of his brothers and sisters give him gold rings. A son of Barakel the Buzite with a name meaning "He is my God" delivers four speeches on this man's behalf. The Lord tells this man to look to a being that "ranks first among the works of God" and conceals itself within the shadow of the lotuses, called the behemoth. This man's house collapses and his herds are lost, while his three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar attempt to get him to give up. For 10 points, name this man of Uz who is a servant of God and is placed in the hands of Satan to prove his devotion in his namesake book of the Bible, which comes between Proverbs and Song of Songs.
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This man's "The Crocodile and the Monkey" is one of the ten verse tales that comprises his book of fables, Beastly Tales from Here and There; two of the tales are set in his make-believe world of Gup. The following year, he released a translation of assorted poems by Li Bai, Wang Wei, and Tu Fu. Most recently the author of Two Lives, he once wrote a libretto based on the story of Arion and the dolphin before taking five years to complete a novel about the attempted revival of a love affair between pianist Julia McNicholl and violinist Michael Holme, entitled An Equal Music. He also had success with his poetry collection Mappings and his verse novel set in San Francisco, The Golden Gate, but is best known for a very long novel about Lata's search for the right husband. FTP, name this Indian-born author of A Suitable Boy.
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This man's daughter released a novel in 2006 which tells of Eva's encounters with the farmhand Ezekial, entitled Skinner's Drift, while his wife is the author of Rite of Passage, Threshhold, and Castaways. This man himself wrote a play in which Marius Byleveld's attempts to put Miss Helen in a nursing home are stopped by Elsa Barlow, and another in which Gladys, who has recently returned from the Fort England Clinic, repeatedly hides a diary before denying that Piet sold Steve out to the police. The major works by this author of A Lesson from Aloes and The Road to Mecca are known as the Port Elizabeth plays. Those include include the story of Sam training Willie for a dance contest at St. George's Park Tea Room, as well as the plays Hello and Goodbye, Boesman and Lena, and The Blood Knot. FTP, name this author of such anti-apartheid plays as No-Good Friday and Master Harold and the Boys.
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This man's latest novel is After Dark, set to be released in English in 2010. While watching a baseball game, he was suddenly inspired to write his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing. A translator has an asexual relationship with twin sisters named 208 and 209 in his second novel, Pinball 1973, which features the recurring characters "J" and "The Rat." Later novels include one about the subconscious of a human computer, Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and his most recently translated work, Kafka on the Shore, but he is best known for novels about a man in search of his cat and his wife and one about Japan in the 1960s. FTP, name this Japanese author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood.
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This man's works have inspired Derek Walcott's The Isle is Full of Noises and Tom Paulin's The Riot Act. He discussed the pain of having one's hair forcibly shorn in a play about the daughter of Salmoneus, Tyro Keiromene. The work Ichneutai, or The Tracking Satyrs, is a rare example of a satyr play by this tragedian. Anthony Hecht mentioned a girl who had read him in a good translation in his "Dover Bitch," but he's better known for a work in which Eurydice kills herself after the deaths of her son and niece and another in which a Theban queen marries her own son. FTP, name this Greek dramatist who wrote Antigone and Oedipus Rex.
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This novel's epigraph is taken from Salvador Elizondo's 1972 work El grafógrafo. It ends with the narrator returning home to his wife Patricia after a night of drinking with his colleagues Pascual and Big Pablito, who work at the Genaro family-owned Radio Panamerica. This novel is interspersed with bizarre radio serials written by the Bolivian Pedro Camacho, whose soap operas parallel the love affair between one of the title characters and Mario. FTP, identify this autobiographical work by Mario Vargas Llosa.
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This novel's title character procures her job due to the abrupt departure of Filomena, an incident related in the novel's first sentence. Many of this novel's central characters are infatuated with Gloria, a beautiful prostitute who often spends the day at her window; these include Professor Josue, who publicly recites a paean to her. One subplot considers the rebellion of Malvina from her father, the powerful Colonel Melk Tavares. One of the main plots concerns a political battle between Amancio Leal and Mundinho Falcao, while the other concerns the title character's culinary battles. FTP, what is this novel set in Ilheus concerning the heroine's relation with Nacib; a work by Jorge Amado?
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This person and Charles Tomlinson built sonnet sequences upon each other's lines in Airborn. One of his works describes the government of his country as "The Philanthropic Ogre", and he examined contemporary poetry in The Pears of the Elm and The Bow and the Lyre. His best-known prose work has chapters entitled "From Independence to the Revolution" and "The Day of the Dead," and a trip to Galta in India inspired a work about Hanuman, The Monkey Grammarian. His most famous long poem consists of 584 lines, matching with the 584 days of the Aztec calendar. For 10 points, name this Mexican author of Sunstone and The Labyrinth of Solitude.
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This person's thesis on García Márquez is subtitled "Story of a God-Killer," while other critical work include 1975's The Perpetual Orgy about Madame Bovary. The Young Lady of Tacna, Kathie and the Hippopotamus, and La Chunga comprise this writer's Three Plays, while time spent at a military school colored his first novel, The Time of the Hero. FTP, name this Spanish-language author best known for The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, The War of the End of the World, and the autobiographical Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter; probably the foremost novelist of Peru.
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This play begins with a humorously truncated prologue in which the author merely tells the audience to stretch its legs since the play is long. One character plans his own birthday party, during which his hired cooks argue and one of them declares that his broth can rejuvenate the old. Reworked by Giambattista Della Porta into La Trappolaria, the plot of this play is set in motion when the pimp Ballio is revealed to have sold a woman to a Macedonian soldier of fortune. This prompts a meeting with the crooked messenger Harpax who is bribed after the main character makes a bet with Simo, after he is informed by Caliodorus that he can no longer woo his love Phoenicium. FTP, name this play by Titus Maccius Plautus about the titular deceitful slave.
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This play begins with a nurse recounting and lamenting the events that have led to the events described. The title character gains sanctuary in Athens in exchange for a fertility drug for the king Aegeus, then escapes in a chariot sent by her grandfather, the Sun-God, following the death of Creon, who is poisoned via the clothes of his daughter Glauce. FTP, identify this play about the vengeful machinations of the former wife of Jason, a tragedy of Euripides.
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This play begins with two men addressing the tomb of Agamemnon. Soon, Electra discovers that her brother has returned home when she finds a lock of his hair on the tomb. Orestes and Pylades dress like travelers and are welcomed into the palace. They tell Clytemnestra that Orestes is dead, and when Aegisthus hears this news he vows to interrogate the messenger. Orestes proceeds to kill Aegisthus. When the murder is discovered Clytemnestra is summoned at which point she is killed as well. Such is the plot of, FTP, what play by Aeschylus-the second in the Oresteia.
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This play features an argument between Right Logic and Wrong Logic over the benefits of bathing. The creditors Pasias and Amynias are rebuked by the dishonest main character, a farmer who, because the titular chorus wishes to teach him fear of the gods, eventually receives a severe beating from his sophist son Pheidippides. Strepsiades ultimately burns down the Thinkery of Socrates in, FTP, what Aristophanes play whose title refers to a group of celestial shape-shifters?
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This play opens with a lock of hair being placed on a grave. In hiding, the protagonist and a companion watch the protagonist's sister pray for an avenger. A chorus relates a dream involving the nursing of a snake, and Cilissa speculates that the queen is secretly pleased to hear, from a traveler, of the death of the queen's exiled son. The traveler turns out to be the son in disguise, and the climax of the play occurs when Aegisthus and Clytemnestra are killed and the Eumenides appear to Orestes. FTP, name this middle play of Aeschylus's Orestia trilogy.
The Sea Gull or Chaika
This play, set on the estate of Pyotr Sorin, features a subplot in which Masha, the daughter of the family steward, marries Semyon Medvedenko in spite of her love for the male lead. Meanwhile, the writer Boris Trigorin has an affair with Nina Zarechnaya, and two years later Nina rejects the advances of Konstantin Treplev, driving him to suicide. FTP, name this play by Anton Chekhov whose title refers to a bird killed by Treplev.
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This work ends with the protagonist on the phone pondering the question “Where are you now?†while earlier in this work, the protagonist philosophizes “Death is not the opposite of life but an innate part of life.†In one episode, this novel's protagonist convinces another character's sick father to eat an entire cucumber. One character in this novel lies about her father moving to Uruguay, while another is a geography major who stutters when he says the word “map.†The protagonist of this novel is a college student whose favorite novel changes from The Centaur to The Great Gatsby, shares a dorm with Storm Trooper, and meets Midori while the depressed Naoko is in a sanatorium. For 10 points, name this novel that centers on Toru Watanabe and is named for a Beatles song, a work of Murakami.
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This work features an atheist doctor who procures numerous books, including Amadis of Gaul, in an attempt to liberate the mind of a future curator of the Vatican Library. At one point in this novel, a family celebrates the Feast of Saint Ambrose, which is presided over by the de facto head of the household Dominga de Adviento. Later chapters include the escape of the insane Martina Laborde, and the recitation of Garcilaso de la Vega's sonnets in a cell. It is prefaced by a quote from Aquinas's "On the Integrity of Resurrected Bodies," and a note by the author that details his inspection of a 200 year old tomb in Cartagena that revealed a corpse with still growing hair. It opens with the twelve year old daughter of the Marquis de Casalduero, a mulatto girl raised by slaves, being bitten by a rabid dog and subsequently sent to the Convent of Santa Clara. It ends with her dying after the secret passage, which once allowed her betrothed to visit, is closed. For 10 points, identify this novel about the relationship between a young girl thought to be possessed, Sierva Maria, and the priest, Cayetano de Laura, who is sent to help, but falls for her, a work by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
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This work includes the narrative of Karmin, who seeks refuge in Babylon from Zaryos and Karmelos, and a story which traces the origin of mules to the sons of Kalimath. Its 19th section discusses the ethnography of Domitius, who links the Byzantines to Shem through the main character's half-brother 'Adrami. Important religious overtones are inherent in its myth of the Pearl of Adam, which eventually becomes Jesus Christ. The central event is enabled by Azaryas, who follows the merchant Tamrin on a mission to Jerusalem and helps procure a sacred item. Meanwhile a blessing allows a son of Makeda to be crowned David II. FTP, name this work about the royal line of Menyelek, a son of Solomon who steals the Ark of the Covenant, the national epic of Ethiopia.
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This work mentions that little sparrows, a rat's nest, and "people who do not bathe for a long time even though the weather is hot" give the author an unclean feeling. In another section, we learn that a night with a clear moon and the "objects used during the display of dolls" are things that arouse a fond memory of the past. Knotweed, a doctor of literature, and a provisional senior steward are among the things that look commonplace but that become impressive when written in Chinese characters. Festivals celebrated near the Palace and the zigzag path to the temple at Kurama are among the things that are distant though near. These are among the roughly 320 sections of this work, whose author worked as an attendant to Empress Sadako beginning in the year 990. FTP, name this book written during the Heian period by Sei Shonagon.
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This work, along with Ovid's Ibis, was notably translated by Thomas Underdowne. In Twelfth Night, Duke Orsino makes a reference to this work's character of Thyamis, who locks a central character in a cave and kills a woman he mistakes for her when he is attacked by a band of thieves. The central characters of this novel survive being subjected to a device that burns all who are unchaste. In this work's tenth and final book, the ruler Hydaspes receives a gigantic wrestler and a giraffe from ambassadors, both of whom are tamed by the male lead. This novel opens in medias res, as a band of robbers discover a scene of carnage and see Chariclea nursing the wounded Theagenes aboard a ship. For 10 points, name this only novel of Heliodorus, a third century work set in a title African country.
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This writer compares a fruit's tough exterior to that of a fallen Amazon warrior in "The Pineapple," and depicts an artist "losing all she had," in "The Ballerina." In addition to two poems "in praise of sand," this author of "The Voice of Elqui" also wrote critical studies of Alfonsina Storni and Alfonso Reyes and looked to religion for subject matter in such works as "The Song to St. Francis" and "Motifs of the Passion." This author's second collection of poems, includes such works as "Children's Hair" and "The Rural Schoolteacher," and was inspired by the suicide of her lover Romelio Ureta. That work was followed by such volumes as The Mothers' Poems and a long work about her homeland, Poem of Chile. For 10 points, identify this author of Ternura, Desolacion, and the Sonnets of Death.
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Tuberculosis cost this author a lung during his time in France researching the Marquis de Sade, an experience that played into his story "And You, Too." Other autobiographical stories by this man include "A Forty Year Old Man," "A Fifty Year Old Man,", and "A Sixty Year Old Man." Gaston Bonaparte is the title character of this man's Wonderful Fool. Mitsu offers herself to Suguro for compensated dating in his novel Scandal, and doctors perform a vivisection on a downed American pilot in his The Sea and Poison. In one of his works, Sebastian Rodrigues is sent to investigate why the missionary Christovao Ferreira has become an apostate in Japan. For 10 points, name this Christian Japanese author of Silence.
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When the daughter of Inachus appears in this play, the protagonist informs her that she will visit the land of the Gorgons and eventually find the source of the Nile. The chorus is composed of the daughters of Oceanus who decry the imposition of force over custom. The play begins with the journey of Kratos, Bia, and Hephaestos into Scythia and it culminates with a visit from Hermes to the titular son of Themis, whose refusal to reveal the usurper of Zeus' throne leads to his smiting by thunderbolt and descent into the underworld. FTP, name this Aeschylus play set at the rock to which the title character is chained for giving fire to mortals.
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When the protagonist of this work tries to confide in a member of the doctors' club, the official merely replies: "You were right this evening: the sturgeon was a bit too strong!" The main character occasionally refers to women as "the lower race" and is sick of his wife, who uses "phonetic spelling". The two primary characters are reunited at a provincial performance of The Geisha. The title character of this story asserts her husband is Russian Orthodox even though his name is Von Diderits after she starts seeing a man she first met in Yalta. For 10 points, name this short story by Anton Chekhov in which Dmitri Gurov has an affair with Anna Sergeyevna, who is sometimes accompanied by her Pomeranian.
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When the wife of this novel's protagonist asks why he keeps fighting, he tosses a pebble into a canyon and says, "'Look at that stone, how it keeps on going.'" Near the end of this novel, War Paint kills Camilla after being rejected by Blondie, and the madman Valderrama disappears when he hears that the group is going to fight the Carranzistas. The title comes from an early gunfight with Federals during which the main character tells his comrades to "'get those coming up from below!'" FTP, name this novel in which Demetrio Macías becomes a general in Pancho Villa's army, written by Mariano Azuela.
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While he was a teenager, William Collins wrote a set of this type of eclogues. A play about the people of this name originally followed Phineas and preceded Glaucus Potneius in a trilogy of which it alone survives. As an adjective, this word appears in the title of an epistolary work in which two noblemen named Usbek and Rica describe French society. A 1972 novel by Mary Renault centers on a "boy" of this ethnicity named Bagoas, who becomes the lover of Alexander the Great. FTP, give this word which describes the "letters" in a book by Montesquieu and which, when plural, names the oldest surviving play by Aeschylus.
Federico García Lorca
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Of Love and Other Demons
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Caius Suetonius Tranquillus
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Dream of the Red Chamber [accept Red Chamber Dream or Hónglóu mèng; or The Story of the Stone; or ShÃtóu jì]
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The Old Gringo
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Sappho
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Scheherezade or Shahrazad
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Shih Ching or Book of Songs or Book of Odes
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Shmuel Yosef Agnon
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Aimé Césaire
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"A Far Cry from Africa"
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Shmuel Yosef Agnon [or Shai Agnon or Shmuel Yosef Halevi Czaczkes or ????? ???? ?????]
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Shooting an Elephant
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Sir Richard Francis Burton
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Snow Country [accept Yukiguni]
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Snow Country or Yukiguni
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Some Prefer Nettles or Tade Kuu Mushi
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Some Prefer Nettles or Tade kuu mushi
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Sophocles
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Soul Mountain
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Spring Snow or Haru no yuki (prompt on Sea of Fertility or Hojo no umi)
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Sun Wukong [or The Monkey King]
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Sunstone (accept Piedra del sol)
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Tale of the Heike or Heike Monogatari
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Terence [or Publius Terentius Afer]
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Terence or Publius Terentius Afer
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The Analects of Confucius (or Lun yü)
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The Annals
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The Apology
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People's Republic of China [accept Zhongguo or Zhonghua Remin Gongheguo; do not accept "Republic of China," feel free to accept a magical psychic buzz with Ding Ling before "this country"]
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Persian (accept The Persians or Persian Letters or even The Persian Boy)
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Persian Letters or Les letters persanes
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Persian [or Farsi]
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Petals of Blood
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Petronius
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Pharsalia or Bellum Civile or The Civil War
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Phedre
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Outlaws of the Marsh or The Water Margin or Shui-hu chuan
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Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez [prompt on partial answer]
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Guide for the Perplexed or Moreh Nevuchim
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J. M. Coetzee (John Michael)
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J.M. Coetzee
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J.M. Coetzee (accept before "novel": Disgrace)
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James Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
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Job
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José de Sousa Saramago
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Julio Cortazar
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Julio Cortázar
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Laura
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Lysistrata
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Mario Vargas Llosa [or Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa]
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Matsuo Basho
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Maxim Gorky (accept: Aleksey Peshkov)
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Medea
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Monkey (accept the Monkey King or Sun Wukong before "Arthur Waley")
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Mr. Biswas or Mohun Biswas
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Nadine Gordimer
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Necronomicon or Al Azif
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Nehemiah
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New Zealand [accept Aotearoa; or The Land of the Long White Cloud]
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Elizabeth Bishop
"One Art" and "The Fish"
Ngugi wa Thiong'o or James Ngugi
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Nigeria
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Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (or Memushiri kouchi)
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No
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No Longer at Ease
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Norwegian Wood [or Noruwei no Mori]
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Ntozake Shange [In-toe-zock-ee Shang-ee]
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Octavio Paz
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The Frogs
(Aristophanes, c. 405 BC) This comedy centers on the god Dionysus, who journeys to the underworld with his much smarter slave Xanthias. Dionysus is unhappy with the low quality of contemporary theater, and plans to bring the playwright Euripides back from the dead. As the ferryman Charon rows Dionysus to the underworld (Xanthias is forced to walk), a chorus of the title creatures appears and repeatedly chants the phrase "Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax." Dionysus and Xanthias then have a series of misadventures, during which they alternately claim to be Heracles. Finally, the two find Euripides arguing with the playwright Aeschylus as to which is the better author. After the dramatists "weigh" their verses on a scale, and offer advice on how to save the city of Athens, Dionysus judges that it is Aeschylus who should be brought back to life.
Eclogues (do not accept Bucolics, since the first four clues all refer to works named "Eclogues")
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Octavio Paz Lozano
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Epistles of Paul [accept letters of Paul]
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"Babi Yar"
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"Gimpel the Fool"
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A Personal Matter (or Kojinteki na taiken)
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Achilles
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Aeschylus
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Aethiopica [or The Ethipian Story; or An Ethiopian Romance]
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Agamemnon [prompt on Oresteia before it's mentioned]
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Aias or Ajax
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Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka [accept A Dance of the Forests before "this man's"]
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Akutagawa Ryunosuke
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Arjuna
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Ben Okri
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Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
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Bucolics or Eclogues
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Chronicle of a Death Foretold [accept Crónica de una muerte anunciada]
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Chronicle of a Death Foretold [or Cronica de una muerte anunciada]
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Chronicle of a Death Foretold or Cronica de un muerte anunciada
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Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov
1965; Tales From the Don; And Quiet Flows from the Don; Virgin Soil Upturned; The Don cycle
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A 2003 study by Yohanan Grinshpon claims that Western commentators have misrepresented these books as pure philosophy and argues that they can only be understood as a story of characters. They first emphasized the importance of cosmic knowledge in avoiding punarmrtyu [poo-nahr-murt-yoo], or "repeated death." The Chandyoga volume contains the central doctrine "tat tvam asi," while others advance the "neti-neti" concept through the character of Yajnavalkya [yahj-nah-VALK-yuh]. Including the Great Forest Texts, they directly answer questions about the sacrifices described in the Rig Veda, and the earliest ones, such as the Isa and Kena, are the basis for the Vedanta school. FTP, identify these texts with a name meaning "sit down near" which outline the philosophy of Hinduism and were a major influence on Arthur Schopenhauer.
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A General's widow carries off one of his neglected sons after giving this "depraved buffoon" "two good, resounding slaps in the face." During an audience with the elder of a monastery, he embarrasses himself and his family by talking a lot of nonsense. Overmastered by lust, he enters into a rivalry with his eldest son for the hand of the local beauty, Grushenka Svetlov, but ends up murdered. FTP, name this character from a Dostoyevsky novel, the father of Dmitry, Ivan, Alyosha, and Smerdyakov.
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A James Dickey poem describes a being that is half this kind of creature who gazes with "eyes / Far more than human" from his "immortal waters." "People or stars / Regard" these creatures "sadly" in a poem about them in fog by Sylvia Plath. In Far From the Madding Crowd, Gabriel Oak becomes penniless after his dog runs these animals off a cliff. A man who dresses as one of these animals is encountered by the unnamed protagonist in a Murakami novel whose sequel is Dance, Dance, Dance. A Balzac novel about the brothers Bridau is titled after a black one of these animals. Fernando Guzman rules the titular town with an iron fist in a Lope de Vega play about this kind of well. FTP name this animal that in Animal Farm declares "four legs bad, two legs good" and joins the Whiter Wool Committee.
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A Jewish student nicknamed "mask-face" is absorbed into the jungle tribe known as the Machiguengans in his novel The Storyteller. The story of a group of boys enrolled in a military academy including "The Poet," "The Slave" and "Boa" is told in The Time of the Hero, while the title event takes place between Santiago and Ambrosio in Conversation in the Cathedral. Better known are his novel about a brothel in a jungle village, The Green House and a novel about revolution in late 19th-century Brazil, The War of the End of the World. Best known, however, is his novel about Mario, a radio journalist and writer who marries one of the title characters, a woman who admires the screenplays of Pedro Camacho. FTP name this Peruvian politician and author of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.
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A childhood fascination with the novel Huck Finn sparked a desire in this individual to become a forest ranger, but only French classes were offered near his isolated village. He mastered French and studied with a translator of Rabelais, wrote a thesis on Sartre, and won acclaim with his story "The Catch." More recent efforts include A Quiet Life and the science fiction effort The Treatment Tower. His first novel Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids did not directly deal with his son Hikari, who is a prominent composer despite severe birth defects. FTP, name this author of A Personal Matter and The Silent Cry, the Japanese winner of the Nobel in Literature in 1994.
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A drunken scene follows a singing contest in this author's story “The Singer.†Five boys guarding horses tell ghost stories around a fire in another of his stories called “Bezhin Lea.†Liza joins a convent after the appearance of Lavretsky's supposed-dead wife in one of his novels, while Elena's interaction with a Bulgarian patriot forms the basis of another of his works. This author of Home of the Gentry and On the Eve also wrote about Natasha's failed love with the title nobleman in Rudin, as well as an account about a man bed-ridden in Sheep's Springs with only two weeks to live, Chulkaturin. For 10 points, name this author of Diary of a Superfluous Man, A Sportsman's Sketches, and a novel about Arkardy Kirsanov and the nihilist Bazarov, Fathers and Sons.
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A favorite saying of the protagonist is, "When a man says yes, his chi says yes also," illustrating his sense of his own boldness and strength. A critical moment in the novel occurs when the girl Ezinma is carried off by Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, who is followed by Ekwefi, the wife of the protagonist. The protagonist loves Ezinma for her strength, favoring her over his son, Nwoye. Its main plot concerns the ways in which Okonkwo deals with the colonization of Nigeria. FTP, what is this classic 1958 novel by Chinua Achebe?
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A man shipwrecked in the title magic land appears in this man's poem "Eralaban," which appears in a collection whose title refers to the two sides of a coin. He hired Samuel Beckett to produce the English translation of an anthology of poetry from his home country, and wrote the essay "The Pears of the Elm" for the introduction to that anthology. The lines, "I travel your length like a river / I travel your body like a forest." appear in a long poem by this man whose structure is based on a calendar. His poem "Obsidian Butterfly" is a lament by the goddess Itzpapálotl, and appears in his aforementioned collection Eagle or Sun?. FTP, name this author of Sun Stone and The Monkey Grammarian who wrote that "Man is the only being who knows he is alone" in his essay The Labyrinth of Solitude, a Mexican Nobel Prize winner.
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A poem named for one of these objects by D. H. Lawrence ends "Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past." In the oeuvre of William Gaddis, a type of these objects symbolizes the mechanization of the arts. One of these objects appears in the title of a novel in which the Ghost Shirt Society's rebellion against the Ilium Works is led by Paul Proteus. Erika Kohut begins a sexual relationship with Walter Klemmer in an Elfriede Jelinek novel named for a teacher of this instrument. One of these instruments contains carvings of Willie Boy's family in a play where it is played by Berenice to exorcise Sutter's ghost. For 10 points, name this instrument which appears in the title of an August Wilson play about its lesson.
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A speaker in this work claims that an Olympic charioteer offers only the guise of happiness while the speaker offers the reality; that speaker recalls speaking out against the illegality of trying a group of ten generals simultaneously. This work argues that a bad man cannot harm a better man. One speaker in this work recounts how Callias wants his sons to be taught by Evenus the Parian, who charges five minae. Socrates recounts how the Oracle at Delphi claimed no man was wiser than him, leading him to conclude his wisdom stems from acknowledging that he knows nothing. Socrates compares himself to a gadfly in stinging the state into action after Lycon, Anytus, and Meletus accuse him of corrupting the youth. For 10 points, name this Platonic dialogue in which Socrates defends himself at court.
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According to Donald Keene, the major characteristics of this author's style include pivot words whose meaning changes depending on the words surrounding them, and chains of related words, or engo. This author collaborated with the chanter Gidayu on works like The Mirror of Craftsmen, and criticized laws mandating the execution of adulterous wives in The Almanac of Love and Gonza the Lancer. This playwright established a new genre of plays in a work in which the villanous Kuheiji causes the deaths of the prostitute Ohatsu and the clerk Tokubei. For 10 points, name this Japanese author of puppet plays like The Love Suicides at Amijima and The Love Suicides at Sonezaki.
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After being denounced by Tigellinus, he was arrested at Cumae and committed suicide. Earlier, he had served as governor of Bithynia and as consul before becoming arbiter of elegance to emperor Nero, who he may have depicted as Trimalchio in his most famous work. FTP, identify this Roman author, best known for a novel about Encolpius's picaresque adventures, the Satyricon.
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After the protagonist of this work realizes that his son is sleeping with his mistress, he arranges to have the boy marry the daughter of a grain merchant. Just after the wedding, the protagonist's wife dies of a stomach ailment, and the protagonist decides to apprentice his next son to the merchant and betrothes his youngest daughter to the merchant's son. After the protagonist takes care of those sons, Nung En and Nung Wen, his uncle's family moves in with him and causes him trouble, since his uncle turns out to be a member of the gang of thiefs. Also featuring a slave named Pear Blossom and a concubine named Lotus Blossom, FTP, name this 1931 novel about the peasant couple O-Lan and Wang Lung, a work set in China and written by Pearl Buck.
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Among the children of this figure is his daughter Jochabed, who would later marry her own nephew Amram, while others include Gerhon, Kohath, and Merari. His descendants would not enjoy material prosperity in the land of Israel due to his role in avenging the seduction of his sister Dinah by Shechem, whose followers he slaughtered while they were recovering from circumcision, although unlike Simeon his progeny would receive cities from all the tribes including the cities of refuge as well as tithes, presumably to maintain them in their care for the priests and maintenance of the tabernacle. FTP, name this third son of Jacob and Leah and ancestor of Moses, whose progeny assumed sacerdotal responsiblities in the Israelite religion.
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Among the minor figures of this work are a Russian who chooses to be burned alive after giving his cyanide pill to fellow prisoners to prevent their execution, an old professor and opium addict who is able to help two of the principal characters, and the German wife of a revolutionary whose experiement in open marriage ends badly. The main characters include an assassin who dies in a failed suicide bombing of Chiang Kai-Shek, the aformementioned revolutionary who later dies in custody, and a French arms smuggler and gambler who only barely escapes China alive. It is sometimes given the title Storm Over Shanghai, which reflects its basis in the Shanghai Revolution of 1927. FTP, the lives of Katov, Old Gisors, his son Kyo and wife May, and the Baron de Clappique all feature in, FTP, what novel of Andre Malraux?
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An arcade machine tells the 28-year-old protagonist of this novel that he has the strength and grip of a 40-year-old, prompting him to pick a fight with a high school gang. This novel opens as that character, looking at a book of road maps, compares his sickly shape to the geography of Africa, to which he dreams of escaping throughout this novel. The protagonist's wife is never named, though she is the source of a fear of wombs that he cures by having anal sex with Himiko. He later tries to kill his newborn son, who was misdiagnosed with a brain hernia. FTP, name this novel about a new father named Bird, possibly inspired by author Kenzaburo Oe's experience with his autistic son.
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An invasion of a Mansion by some weasels foretells both joy and sorrow for a former ruler; meanwhile the crash of a tree near the Hill Palace causes a character in this work to command his men to stand ever-ready to shoot the goblins thought to be responsible. Earlier in this work that same character's cruelty causes the dancing girl Gio to shave her head and become a nun. Originally divided into twelve chapters, later versions included a secret text known as "The Initiates' Chapter" which focuses on the "Matter of the Six Paths" and tells the story of an Empress' exile. Other episodes include a Prince leading a fruitless revolt alongside the monks of Miiidera, as well as the execution of the child warrior Atsumori by Kumagae. Although the ruthless Kiyomori leads the title group to a series of victories in the early chapters, the defeat of Rokudai at the battle of Dan-no-Ura cements their demise. For 10 points, identify this work set during the Gempei Wars, a Japanese epic that traces the decline of the Taira clan.
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Andre Breton met him after reading the first issue of Tropiques, and later wrote an introduction to one of this man's works set "at the end of daybreak," which references Josephine, and contains images such as a jar of oil with the word "MERCI" in gold and lagoons "not covered in waterlilies," a reference to French colonialism. His plays include Une Saison au Congo and La Tragedie du Roi Christophe, about the rise and fall of a leader of Haiti. A neologism he coined along with Leon-Gontran Dumas and Leopold Senghor first appeared in a long poem set on Martinique. For 10 points, name this author of Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, the co-creator of negritude.
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Arthur Brown gives Dulcie and Mrs. Poulter two of the title objects, one of which his brother Waldo will not accept, in one novel by this author. The main character appears as the guises of Eudoxia, Eddie, and Eadith in one of this author's novels, while this author of The Solid Mandala also wrote about the lives of the Holocaust survivor Mordecai Himmelfarb and the spinster Mary Hare in another novel. This author of The Twyborn Affair and Riders in the Chariot may be better known for novels about the fame achieved by painter Hurtle Duffield and the transcontinental taken by Harry Robarts, Laura Trevelyen, and the title German explorer. For 10 points, name this author of The Vivisector and Voss, who hails from Australia.
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As a child, this character reads his uncle the column That Body of Yours every Sunday. He sleeps with a cutlass and buys a puppy named Tarzan to protect himself while waiting for Mr. Maclean to finish building a shelter in the Green Vale, which is ultimately burnt down by sugarcane farmers. His father drowns after diving into a pool in a misguided attempt to save this character, who is actually hiding under a bed to avoid punishment for losing a calf. After his son Anand abandons him, he begins to work as a reporter for The Sentinel in Port of Spain. This character works as a sign painter, which brings him to Hanuman House, where he marries Shama by the Tulsi family. For 10 points, name this six-fingered character who struggles to get a house in a novel by V. S. Naipaul.
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As this novel opens, one main character is returning from his first visit to Bombay in fifteen years. On the same plane is the other protagonist, an Indian film star who specializes in playing Hindu gods. After the plane is hijacked and explodes over the English channel, the two men, Saladin Chamcha and Gibreel Farishta, experience a series of metamorphoses, dreams, and revelations that imply a new interpretation for the founding of Islam. FTP, what was this controversial novel by Salman Rushdie?
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At her death in 1979 she was still working on her autobiography, Smile Please, and her other late works include the stories collected in Sleep It Off, Lady and Tigers Are Better Looking. She published her first book, The Left Bank and Other Stories, in Paris, and went on to write such novels as Voyage in the Dark and After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie. FTP, identify this author, born Ella Williams, who is best remembered for feminist novels like Good Morning, Midnight and the 1966 story of Rochester's Creole wife, Wide Sargasso Sea.
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At its beginning, an important issue is the absence of people from Boeotia. One of the central exchanges occurs between Cinesias and Myrrhine, though they succeed in solving little. A humorous scene takes place when a chorus of old men arrives to burn another group out of the Acropolis, though they only choke themselves on the smoke. Calonice is an old-fashioned Athenian, who does not believe in the title character, while Lampito is the head of the Spartan delegation. The resolution finally occurs with a nude female statue, which is used to symbolize Reconciliation between the two cities and the sexes. FTP, identify this anti-war play centering on the withholding of sexual favors, the most famous comedy of Aristophanes.
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At one point a magistrate who opposes the protagonist has pots of water poured on his head, while others claim fear of snakes and owls to excuse their desertion. The protagonist's plan is seen in action through the antics of Cinesias and Myrrhine, while Lampito effectively enacts the plan in Sparta, and when delegates from Sparta arrive in Athens a nude maiden is used to entice both sides into a peace agreement. FTP, what is this Aristophanes play in which women withhold sex in order to end a war?
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At one point in this book, a colorful character called Boris the Manskinner says that "the narrower a man's intellectual grasp, the more power he is able to grab." The story of a man ordered to kill all large animals at his zoo before they starve is told by his daughter Nutmeg and her mute son Cinnamon. The protagonist meets the psychic Kano sisters, one of whom is a mental prostitute with whom he has brain sex. He also often communicates with the teenage May Kasahara. That protagonist, Toru Okada, listens to "The Thieving Magpie" while cooking spaghetti and wants to find his cat. For 10 points, name this novel by Haruki Murakami titled after a certain mechanical toy.
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At the beginning of one of this author's plays The Frog enters as the narrator and exclaims, "Aeschylus Me!" after sneezing. This author wrote about "Rude Bwoy" and Brother Aaron trying to protect their community in O Babylon!. Another work includes a scene where a man presides over a trial condemning Abraham Lincoln before he beheads the white goddess, and this author wrote about a man outwitting "The Planter" in Ti-Jean and His Brothers. This author wrote about Corporal Lestrade chasing the prisoner Makak through a hallucinatory journey in his play Dream on Monkey Mountain. For 10 points, name this author who re-imagined The Odyssey set on Saint Lucia in his epic poem Omeros.
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At the end of his life this mythological figure set sail in a copper boat on a voyage without end. A patient man, he spent thirty years in his mother's womb before he decided to be born. Some of his exploits include inventing the harp using the bones of a pike and the hair of a woman, and defeating the rival singer Joukahainen in a song contest. But this son of Luonnotar is most famous for protecting his friend Ilmarinen's greatest creation from Louhi, the ruler of Pohjola. FTP identify this great bard, the defender of the Sampo and chief hero of the Kalevala.
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Attacked by Oe for his anti-intellectualism, he was also called "batakusai" or "stinking of butter" in reference to his Americanism. His most recent novel, a retelling of the Oedipus myth, is meant as a successor to his three-volume masterpiece, which chronicled Toru Okada's search for his wife and cat. The stories "superfrog saves tokyo" and "ufo in kushiro" are included in his most recently translated work, after the quake. The author of Kafka on the Shore, FTP, identify this author of A Wind-up Bird Chronicle.
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Bonaventura Cavalieri is referenced in the last note to this short story, in which the narrator recalls two axioms. The narrator considers the sequence d-h-c-m-r-l-c-h-t-d-j, which does not mean anything terrible in any secret language, and is concerned that you understand his language. The narrator first attempts to describe the titular structure and notes that the "satisfaction of fecal necessities" is permitted before eventually offering a seven-word definition for it: "ubiquitous and everlasting system of hexagonal galleries." FTP, what collection of works that includes such titles as The Combed Thunderclap and The Plaster Cramp names this Borges story about an infinite compilation of books?
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Book I begins "From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper." The author wrote this "among the Quadi at the Granua." Much of it was based on a work compiled by the historian Arrian, the Enchiridion of Epictetus. All of it was written during campaigning against the Marcomanni on the Danube, while its author was away from Rome. FTP, name this pinnacle of Stoicism written before AD 180 by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
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Book Seven of this work begins with a discussion of a quote from Homer in which Praim says of Hector that he seemed not to be thie child of a mortal man, which leads to the claim that men are rarely brutish. That book concludes with a discussion of three views which are hostile to pleasure, while the following book considers the reciprocity and casuistry of friendship. This work opens with a passage about the aims of various activities and argues that the discussion shuold not try to be clearer than the subject-matter allows, and suggests that young men are not well-suited to listen to lectures on the subject of the work. The "good for man" and "moral virtue" are among the topics discussed in its ten books. FTP, name this work which discusses the nature of eudaimonia or happiness, a book by Aristotle which is named for his son, its first editor.
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Chandara takes the blame for her brother-in-law's killing of his wife in this author's story "Punishment." In addition to Formless Jewel, this author wrote a work in which the title character, who wears the title plant, challenges the king of the Fortress of Kubera, while Nikhil's wife Bimala is the middle of a love triangle in his novel The Home and the World. This author of the play Red Oleanders and the collection Wild Geese also penned the line "what had gone: the golden boat took all" in another collection, while Yeats wrote the preface to his most famous work, which contains 103 poems. FTP, identify this Bengali author of the collection Gitanjali, or Song Offerings.
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Chapter 10 of this novel begins in the form of a diary extract by a Dutch clerk named Jonassen who documents the searching of several ships, while its appendix contains a chart explaining the number of silver pieces available to informers. In one scene, a woman named Monica, who'd previously given the protagonist a cucumber, is rolled up in a straw mat, rowed out to sea, and tossed in. In another, two men sing "We're on our way, we're on our way" while being tied to trees on the seashore; when the tide rolls in they drown. The main character regrets not following in the footsteps of his companion Francis Garrpe who dies attempting to save the newly converted. The cowardly Kijichiro appears throughout this work, which begins with the news of Christovao Ferreira's apostasy. For 10 points, identify this novel about the experiences of Father Rodrigues in Japan, a work by Shusaku Endo.
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Clement Egerton's 1939 translation of this novel includes 50 passages translated into Latin rather than English because of their erotic content. The title character, described as having a two-edged sword lurking between her thighs, competes for the protagonist's attentions with the likes of his young male servant Shutong and his five other wives. FTP, name this anonymous Ming dynasty novel about playboy Ximen Qing, who has abducted the titular flower-like woman.
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Collections such as The Twin in the Clouds and the poems "1905" and "Leitenant Schmidt" gained him fame. He had turned to poetry at the age of 18 and soon after published My Sister Life followed by Themes and Variations. The title character of his most famous novel is also a poet and 25 of his verses make up the last part of the novel, which introduced such characters as uncle Kolya and the mistress Lara. FTP, name this author who was castigated for the negative depiction of Soviet communism in his Dr. Zhivago.
Margaret Mead
Coming of Age in Samoa
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Compiled between 1000 and 700 BC, it supposedly included over 3,000 items, but was reduced to an anthology of just 300. It is divided into three parts, according to musical accompaniment: the feng include love songs, wedding songs, and work songs; the ya are secular court poems; while the sung include Chou and Shang ceremonial dances. FTP, name this collection of poetry included among the Five Chinese Classics.
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Divided into three primary parts, this work is composed as a series of interconnected vignettes with such titles as "To Climb the Prickly Pear Tree" and "The Old Man with a Yellow Mustache." The many characters in this work include the poet Bernardo Supratous who imitates e.e. cummings and such foreigners as Prince Vampa, an Italian cook who pretends to be nobleman, as well as Soapy Ainsworth, an American heir to a laundry chain fortune. It begins with the story of Gladys Garcia, a prostitute who wakes up and reminisces about her life. All of these characters are met at some point by Ixca Cienfuegos, who symbolizes the presence of the old gods. Its author's first novel, its title comes from Reyes' Vision de Anahuac which extolled the transparency of the view from the high plateaus. For 10 points, identify this sprawling work tracing the history of Mexico City, a novel by Carlos Fuentes.
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During a visit to Barbara Smith's home in this novel, one character finds out that Sibeko's daughter was arrested for distilling liquor. By the end of the novel, the protagonist's fellow villagers receive gifts, including milk for the children and the hiring of Napoleon Letsitsi to teach farming techniques. Before leaving Mrs. Lithebe's home, Msimangu decides to become a monk and thus gives the protagonist all of his possessions. Having left Ndotsheni to help his sick sister Gertrude, the reverend also found his son, who was sentenced to death for murder of Arthur Jarvis. Absalom is still hanged, despite the help of Stephen Kumalo, at the end of, FTP, which novel by Alan Paton?
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During the last years of his life, he wrote several essay collections in English including Emerson, Whitman, and Our America. This continued a varied literary career that included his founding of the newspaper The Free Fatherland when he was 16. However, he is best remembered for such poems as "Hashish," "Yo quiero salir del mundo," and "Cultivo una rosa blanca" that appeared in collections like Obras Completas and Versos libres. This all happened before he died in a skirmish near Dos Rios in 1895. FTP, name this revolutionary, revered as a hero in the liberation of his native Cuba.
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Each line in this form ends with an anceps, which can be either a spondee or a trochee. Except for the fifth foot, which is almost always the namesake type, any foot in this scheme can be replaced by a spondee; but normally, each foot begins with a thesis of one long syllable and is followed by an arsis of two short syllables. Because of its "marching" quality, this is the meter of mainstream epics. FTP, identify this meter used in such poems as Evangeline, the Iliad and Odyssey, and the Aeneid.
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Early in his legal career, he studied rhetoric with Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro, and then became either the administrator of a prison or a mint before being promoted to judge. Spurious works attributed to him include On Fishing and The Walnut Tree, while he defended his life's work in Ibis. He wrote a long poem on women's cosmetics, Medicamina Faciei Femineae, and attempted to cure love in Remedia Amoris. He composed letters between mythological heroes and their spouses in the Heroides, and in Letters from the Black Sea lamented the exile caused in part by his controversial Ars Amatoria. FTP, name this Latin poet probably best known for his Metamorphoses?
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Educated at the universities of Guatemala and Paris, he served as ambassador to Mexico, Argentina, and El Salvador until he was exiled from his native country. In his Nobel citation, he was commended for "his highly colored writings rooted in a national individuality," such as in the novel Strong Wind. The recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize, his novels, such as Mulatta, were anti-imperialistic in nature. FTP, name this 1967 Nobel Prize recipient and author of El senor presidente.
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Einhard wrote The Life of Charlemagne in imitation of this man's writings and he is the main source for the life of the comedian Terence which, along with a life of Horace, are the only two fully extant sections out for his largest work, De Viris Illustribus (On Illustrious Men). His most famous work has become more accessible since it has been translated by Robert Graves, who must have relied heavily on it for his novel I, Claudius. FTP name this 2nd century Roman author who wrote biographies of the first twelve emperors from Caesar to Domitian.
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Ernest wrote such poetic works as The Emperor's Vigil and The Revolt of Hindostan, while Ebenezer's poetry collection Studies of Sensation and Event was a big hit with the Brownings. Henry wrote poems about Kew Garden and the Isle of Wight, while Henry Arthur founded the "realist problem" drama with works like Mrs. Dane's Defence and Saints and Sinners. David Michael became a painter late in life but remains best known for his poems of World War I, such as The Anathemata and In Parenthesis. A better known author of this name wrote such novels as Go to the Widow-Maker, Some Came Running, and The Thin Red Line. FTP give this literary surname that identifies James, best known for 1951's From Here to Eternity.
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Examples of them discussed in a book about them include Sainte-Beuve's criticism of Flaubert's Salammbo and the word "anecdotage," which was coined by De Quincey. In the first of them to be discussed, a lottery agent named Hirsch-Hyacinth boasts about being treated well by Baron Rothschild. The author was inspired to consider them after reading an 1898 book by Theodor Lipps, who emphasized the active creation of them. The book about them began as a study of Jewish ones in particular, but expanded as the author argued that they are generally intended to reduce mental expenditure. They were written about in 1905, simultaneously with a series of three essays on sexuality. FTP, name this linguistic phenomenon, whose "relation to the unconscious" is the subject of a book by Sigmund Freud.
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Foe is a rewrite of Robinson Crusoe, while the collection Dusklands contains "The Vietnam Project," and focuses on the recurring theme of war. Colonel Joll stirs up fears of a native "threat," thus disrupting the equanimity of a town previously ruled peacefully by the Magistrate in his allegorical Waiting for the Barbarians. Another recent novel features former professor David Lurie and his daughter Lucy being attacked by three black men. The racial problems of his homeland are a recurring theme in the fiction of, FTP, what South African author of Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K?
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Gerald Guinness accused this of being an "unlikable poem" which uses the word "batten" when it should use "cause" and engages in phrases such as "colonel of carrion" for "reasons rather of sound than sense." This poem describes "brutish necessity" wiping its hands "upon the napkin of a dirty cause." A worm in this poem urges no waste of compassion on "separate dead." Its speaker claims that "statistics justify and scholars seize" policies that lead to a child being hacked in bed. Addressing similar themes as the author's "Ruins of a Great House," the speaker of this poem contrasts "a white dust of ibises" with men who "Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum."This poem's central conflict is compared to "The gorilla wrestling with the superman," and the speaker wonders how to choose between the title place and "the English tongue I love." The speaker wonders how he can "face such slaughter and be cool" before questioning "How can I turn from" the title place "and live?" For 10 points, name this poem about a continent by Derek Walcott.
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Gil and Menga's search for a missing one introduces the action in Calderón de la Barca's The Devotion of the Cross, while Maillochon and Labouise shoot one in the head and sell its corpse to an idiot in a namesake Guy de Maupassant story. On a trip from Le Monastier to St. Jean du Gard, Robert Louis Stevenson is famously accompanied by one named Modestine. One of these creatures with a soft, silvery coat, is a title character of a work subtitled "An Andalusian Elegy," Juan Ramón Jiménez's Platero y Yo. A well-known example is the result of Fotis rubbing Pamphile's magic ointment on Lucius, which turns him into one of these rather than an eagle. FTP, name this animal, examples of which include Sancho Panza's lowly mount, Dapple, and the "golden" title character of an Apuleius work.
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He gave himself a minor role as Father Higgins in an "apprenticeship work" about Willie Seopola. Several of his plays, including The Island, were largely a result of improvisation, while a woman giving premature birth formed the basis for The Cell, which both he and his wife Sheila claim was his first work. His play focusing on Zachariah and his lighter-skinned half-brother Morris was grouped in his Family Trilogy with Hello and Goodbye and Boesman and Lena. Another work features the waiters Willie and Sam, who drops his pants after hearing a racist joke from Hally. FTP name this South African playwright of Blood Knot and Master Harold...and the Boys.
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Gregory Vlastos's dissertation on this work took an unusual literal interpretation, and Julia Kristeva borrows its term chora to refer to her "maternal receptacle." It begins with Hermocrates relating a tale about Solon to the title character, a citizen of Locris, who responds by distinguishing between that which always is and that which was created. The title character then goes on to relate the planets to the Pythagorean intervals. It introduces the demiurge and posits five elements, those being the quintessence and four others that correspond with certain "perfect" solids. Considered the most important Platonic dialogue during the Middle Ages, FTP, name this work that includes a description of Atlantis and that details Plato's theory of creation.
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He wrote about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War in Beneath Your Clear Shadow and Other Poems. His idea that existential alienation can be overcome through erotic love and artistic creativity was a recurring theme in prose works like The Pears of the Elm, The Bow and the Lyre, and The Monkey Grammarian. His poetry collections Luna silvestre and Sun Stone helped him win the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature. FTP, who is this Mexican writer, the author of The Labyrinth of Solitude?
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He turned away from novels for several years, publishing East, West, a book of short stories, and his travel narrative in a dangerous Nicaragua, The Jaguar Smile. Professor Malik Solanka travels the globe in his novel Fury, and he chronicles Flapping Eagle's quest to regain his mortality in Grimus. The world of rock and roll provides the frame for The Ground Beneath her Feet, but is for a novel about Shiva and Saleem Sinai that he first received acclaim. FTP, name this Indian author of Midnight's Children and the much more controversial The Satanic Verses.
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He died while journeying to Mount Meru after making the empty boast that he could kill all his enemies in one day. While hiding behind the reborn hermaphrodite Sikhandi, he launched a torrent of arrows, killing his great-uncle Bhishma. The sun dimmed when this youngest son of Kunti killed Kunti's eldest son Karna during the battle of Kurukshetra. He shot five arrows through a ring to win his wife, but an unfortunate command from Kunti to share his prize resulted in his four brothers also marrying Draupadi. FTP name this hero in the Mahabharata who receives advice in the Bhagavad Gita from his charioteer, Krishna.
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He founded a group of amateur actors known as the Serpent Players and developed the concept of "pure theater" after coming across the ideas of drama theorist Jerzy Grotowski. He produced his first play, No-Good Friday, in 1958 and collaborated with John Kani and Winston Ntshona on such dramas as The Island and Sizwe Bansi is Dead. His work Tsotsi depicted Sophiatown ghetto existence, while Playland is set on the eve of Nelson Mandela's release from prison. FTP, identify this South African playwright perhaps best known for "MASTER HAROLD"...and the Boys and The Blood Knot.
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He was a lifelong civil servant and an increasingly fervent Buddhist devotee. Born in 699, he typically wrote in five-line tanka verses that were initially quite florid and reflective of his lavish aristocratic upbringing. Eventually, he turned to the more introspective and terse poetic style for which he is known. FTP, name this Chinese poet of the T'ang period.
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He wrote about the death of the Yardmaster in "Man on Pink Corner," which was included along with "The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell" and a work about Monk Eastman in his A Universal History of Iniquity. He wrote about the scarred John Vincent Moon in "The Shape of the Sword" and of the death of a man with perfect memory in "Funes the Memorious." In another of this man's works, the narrator trades a rare Bible for the infinitely-long "Book of Sand," while in another, Dr. Albert is shot in the back by the double agent Yu Tsun. For 10 points, identify this author of "The Garden of Forking Paths," an Argentine who also wrote the collections El Aleph and Ficciones.
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He wrote about the fates of Sinfin Carrasco, Justino Perez, Roberto Lopez, and the rest of the "crew" who engaged in the titular fight in his "Furious Struggle Between Seamen and an Octopus of Colossal Size," which along with "Fear" and "We Are Many" appeared in the volume Estravagario. He wrote poems to a "fallen chestnut," a "yellow bird," and "laziness" in his Elemental Odes, while his earlier works include poems about the battle of the Jarama River and one entitled "The Magellan Heart." Later in his career politics played a larger role in his work, as seen in book-length historical poems like Canto general and a work based on his visit to an Incan city in the nation north of his own, "The Heights of Macchu Picchu." FTP, name this author of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, a Nobel laureate from Chile.
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He wrote the novels The Suffrage of Elvira and Miguel Street while living in England. Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey focuses on Indonesia, India is the subject of An Area of Darkness and India: A Million Mutinies Now, and A Bend in the River is about Africa. Knighted in 1989, FTP, name this Trinidad born author of A House for Mr. Biswas.
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Her most famous novel chronicles the life of Rose, who assists her father Lionel in his Communist activities. A recent collection of essays, Writing and Being, followed a period of poorly received works that included My Son's Story, and None to Accompany Me. Her novel The Late Bourgeois World added to the recognition she gained from her story collection, The Soft Voice of the Serpent, but her international breakthrough was the 1974 Booker Prize-winner, The Conservationist. FTP, name this author of July's People and Burgher's Daughter, the South African winner of the 1991 Nobel in Literature.
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His animal-themed poems include one in which he buries his dead dog "in the garden/next to a rusted old machine" and another focusing on a "Cat's Dream." "Entrance into Wood," "Hymn to Celery," and "Statute of Wine" make up his three "Material Cantos," which along with poems like "Dream Horse" and "Death Gallop" are included in the cycle Residence on Earth. An artichoke, a lemon, and Conger Chowder are among the subjects of his Elemental Odes. Better known are a cycle of amorous poems ending with the exclamation "In everything you sank!" in a "Song of Despair" and a long poem about an Incan ruin. FTP name this Chilean poet, whose "Heights of Macchu Picchu" is included in his Canto General.
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His first collection, "The Seashell Game", demonstrated his masterful use of the "loneliness ideal". He grew up as a companion of lord Todo Yoshitada at Ueno Castle, but has a name meaning banana-plant hut. After studying under Kitamura Kigin, he published works like A Visit to Kashima Shrine and The Records of a Weather Exposed Skeleton describing his many travels. FTP, identify this 17th century writer best known for mastering the haiku form.
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His later essays for publications like el Moudjahid and Les Temps Modernes were published posthumously under the title Toward the African Revolution. In his first important work this philosopher discusses the ways in which the black man is alienated from himself because of his colonization by the master's language. This work was followed by Studies in a Dying Colonialism, as well as his most famous book calling for "absolute violence" to liberate Algeria and the rest of Africa. FTP identify this psychoanalyst whose volumes Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth have become classics of post-colonial thought.
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His short stories include one in which five different Noahs sail five different boats, "The Chosen," as well as a humorous work about an ambassador, "Right of Sanctuary." Both of those stories were collected in The War of Time, a volume that preceded this man's novel about a conquistador's encounter with Vivaldi and the subsequent decision to compose the opera Motezuma. Another of his novels, which features the prostitute Estrella and climaxes at a concert hall during a performance of Eroica, centers on the pursuit of an informer and is called Manhunt. In another novel, this author adopted the story of Victor Hughes, a naval hero who led the assault against the British at Guadeloupe. That work, originally called The Age of Enlightenment, was translated into English as Explosion in a Cathedral. His earliest success which begins with the resistance of Macandal and tells the story of Ti Noel, who lives through the revolution in his native Haiti, may be best known for its preface which argued for an intermingling of the everyday with the miraculous in Latin American Literature. For 10 points, identify this Cuban author of such works as The Lost Steps, who introduced the concept of magical realism in his novel The Kingdom of this World.
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In 1934 and 1939 the title character took trips to Paris and New York, where he had affairs with foreign women. However, the three most important women in his life are Teresa, Regina, and Catalina, and the only important man, his son Lorenzo, died a revolutionary. The psyche of the title character struggles between an accusatory "Thou" voice and a defensive "I" voice. Shamed by his accusatory voice for the betrayal of his friends, like Gonzalo Bernal, his ego protests that at least he survived while all the idealists perished in the revolution of 1910. FTP, identify this novel about the final days of a political boss in contemporary Mexico, written by Carlos Fuentes.
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In 1953 he founded his country's Liberal Party, which was banned in 1968 by the Prohibition of Political Interference Bill. His lesser-known works include a study of his friends Jan Hofmeyr and the archbishop Geoffery Clayton, For Your Departed. He published a book of short stories, Tales from a Troubled Land, and a novel containing real life characters like Albert Lutuli entitled Ah, But your Land if Beautiful. However, neither those works, nor his second novel about Peter van Vlaanderen, Too Late the Phalarope, could match the popularity of his first work. FTP, name this South African novelist, who wrote of the preacher Stephen Kumalo in Cry, the Beloved Country.
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In a story by this man the protagonist injures his head while rushing to read The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, leading him to convalesce in the title region, while Ryan quests to identify the assassin of Fergus Kilpatrick in another. The author Jaromir Hladik is persecuted by the Nazi Julius Rothe in "The Secret Miracle," and other characters from his works include a man who develops perfect memory after being thrown from a horse and Yu Tsun, a Chinese spy for Imperial Germany being pursued by Captain Richard Madden. In addition to "Funes, the Memorious" and "The Garden of Forking Paths," he wrote about a "Lottery in Babylon" and of an author praised for exactly rewriting Don Quixote. FTP name this author, whose most famous works include "El Aleph" and "The Library of Babel."
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In ancient times, this poet was so associated with epic poetry that other author's works, such as the "Catalogues of Women" and the "Shield of Heracles", were attributed to him, and now they often appear in editions of his works. According to his own writings he was a native of Boeotia who owed his poetic gifts to the Muses, who appeared to him while he was tending his sheep, leading him to write his most famous poems, one of which describes daily peasant life, the other of which recounts the myths of the gods. FTP, name this 8th century BCE poet often called the father of Greek didactic poetry, the author of the "Works and Days" and the "Theogony".
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In its 36th and final chapter, we learn that the daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord commanded and married sons of their father's brothers. In the beginning of the book, a divinely-commanded census is taken, while later chapters feature a woman who becomes leprous and a mission in which twelve spies are sent from Paran to Canaan. It also describes the revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and features Barak's summons of Balaam, whose ass is notoriously recalcitrant. FTP, name this book of the Old Testament which comes between Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
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In one of this author's novels, the narrator admires the gambler Hat, and tells of the carpenter Popo who never builds anything useful and the poet B. Wordsworth who is still working on the first line of his epic poem. In addition to Miguel Street, this author wrote about Salim, who opens a shop across from a Big Burger franchise in a country ruled by the Big Man. In another novel, this author wrote about a six fingered journalist who is tricked into marrying into the Tulsi family while working as a sign painter. For 10 points, name this Trinidadian author of A House for Mr. Biswas and A Bend in the River.
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In the middle of this work, the narrator stops to correct himself after using the phrase “waiting for the rain to stop.†Another character in this work, a monkey-like woman, talks about a merchant who chopped up snakes and sold the pieces as dried fish. That woman inspires 60% fear and 40% curiosity in the only other character of the story, a lowly servant with a prominent, pus-filled pimple on his right cheek. This work sees that woman explains to the servant that it is not wrong for her pluck the hair of dead corpses to make wigs because she needs to survive. Ultimately, the servant uses the same logic to strip the woman of her kimono in this short story. For 10 points, identify this short story named for the Kyoto gate at which it is set, a work of Ryunosuke Akutagawa.
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In the opening scene of this work, the title character tells of how a king married a sea-nymph named Psamante after Aeacus finished with her, and notes that a princess named Eido had her name changed upon reaching puberty. In response to a threat, another female character in this work claims to have learned that her husband died at sea, and asks to be allowed to give him a proper burial before marrying the king, Theoclymenus. When the king realizes that he has been deceived he tries to kill his sister, Theonoe, but she is saved when the Dioscuri descend to earth and explain that the two Greeks were destined to return home together. The story hinges on the idea that a phantom was sent to Troy, while the title character went to Egypt. FTP, name this play which first appeared in 412 BC, a work by Euripides about the wife of Menelaus.
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In this work, a character realizes that clouds change not while you gaze at them fixedly but when you look away, an idea which is reflected in the third line of Wang Wei's poem "The Cheng-nan Mountains." That poem's title is also reflected in this work in the name of an estate where four youths spend the summer of 1912. At one point, a young lover is smuggled to the beach, where Satoko makes love to the central character. On that same beach, three moles on Kiyoaki's side are observed by a student of German law, Shigekuni Honda, who would be haunted by those specks in later works. Kiyoaki dies at the age of nineteen after Satoko locks herself in a monastery after aborting their love child and breaking off the engagement to the emperor's son. FTP, name this book which is followed by Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel as the first novel in Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetrology.
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In this work, the close of the Watchman's speech foreshadows the action to come when he says "I speak to those who understand, / but if they fail, I have forgotten everything." The image of the yoke recurs throughout the work, as in line 842, when it refers to a comrade, or as a mark of slavery for the citizens at line 1639 after the chorus has accused one character of "like a woman, wait[ing] the war out." That character, Aegisthus, arrives with his guards after his paramour has announced their murder of the title character, whose death was warranted, they claim, because of the crimes of his father, Atreus, and his murder of Iphigenia. FTP, name this play, the first in Aeschylus's Oresteia, named for the slain Argive king.
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In this work, the teenaged Asya asks Dyomka to kiss her breast. When his son visits him at this novel's titular location, the Party member Pavel Rusanov berates him for being too soft on a truck driver who lost a box of macaroni in a snowstorm. Like its author, the main character of this work has been exiled due to Article 58, which deals with counterrevolutionaries. The protagonist of this work is left sexually impotent because of his residence in the title place. At this novel's end, the protagonist leaves a letter for Vera Gangart and boards a train back to Ush-Terek. For 10 points, name this work in which Oleg Filimonovich Kostoglov seeks treatment at the titular facility, a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
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In this work, which features a milkman nicknamed the "One-Eyed," a character angers his elders by publishing an article about Darwin's theories and philosophizing with Qaldes. It ends with the central character suffering a stroke after returning from an air raid shelter. Pivotal events include the banishing of a wife for having broken her collar bone in a car accident, and the marriage of Zannuba to the man she formerly served as consort, Yasim. Fahmi dies because he engages in political activities in resisting the British, which causes patriarchal grocery store owner Sayyid Ahmad to cease having an affair. Its volumes are named after roads in the titular locale. For 10 points, name this novel sequence consisting of Palace of Desire, Sugar Street and Palace Walk, a work by Naguib Mahfouz.
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It begins with a housecall during which Jeremiah de St. Amour is found dead. After a series of letters that end with a proposal, and the declaration "I will marry you if you promise not to make me eat eggplant" Aunt Escolastica tells her ward to marry the poetic assistant to Lotario Thugut. Unfortunately Lorenzo Daza has promised his daughter Fermina to another. FTP identify this work, detailing the patience of Florentino Ariza as he waits half a century for Dr. Juvenal Urbino to die so that he may be reunited with his love, a novel by Gabriel García Marquez.
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It concerns the young, still beardless king of Thebes, Pentheus. A puritan, he detests the sexual excesses associated with traditional forms of worships, and imprisons many of the participants including even a god. When the female worshipers are miraculously released, Pentheus feels compelled to see the rites, but is hacked to pieces by the women, including among them his own mother Agave. FTP name this play by Euripides about the Dionysian rites.
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It features a discussion of the Grand Marshall watching a beautiful nun wash her own entrails in a bathtub. The protagonist later hears the story of a group of girls who had sex parties, earning the execution of the ringleader. This novel begins in second person, and later shifts to other voices like He and She. The closest the unnamed narrator gets to the title location is a rock where women burn incense when they want to have sons. The author based the story on his own quest to find the mythical Lingshan. FTP, identify this poetic novel, the best known of the 2000 winner of the Nobel Prize, by Gao Xingjian.
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It is divided into four parts, of which the third is titled "Survival of These Principles in Ancient Systems of Law and Ancient Economies." The second part explains the extension of the title action in terms of "Liberality, honor, and money," while the first part concentrates on that action primarily in a Polynesian context. Melanesian and Northwest American forms are also discussed, though the author never did any fieldwork himself. FTP, name this work subtitled "The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies," the most famous work of Marcel Mauss.
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It opens with a long speech by Aphrodite before the palace of Pittheus at Troezen, where one of the central characters has been exiled for killing a kinsman. The title character is killed while driving his chariot by the shore, when a giant wave rises from the sea and a massive bull emerges from the water. This fulfilled one of three wishes Poseidon granted to Theseus, a wish invoked after Theseus was tricked by a letter in the hand of his dead wife Phaedra. FTP, name this Euripides play in which Phaedra's love for the title character leads to Theseus killing his own son.
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It opens with a solitary watchman who notices a light, signaling the title character's approach. The title character returns to Argos after the fall of Troy, describing how his galley was the only one to make it out of a squall. With him, he brings Cassandra, who foresees his murder as well as her own. Unbeknownst to him, his wife has taken his cousin Aegisthus as her paramour. She proceeds to murder him in his bath, turn on Cassandra, and have Aegisthus use his bodyguards to exact control over Argos. FTP, name this Aeschylus play, the first component of the Oresteia trilogy, which details the murder of Orestes's father by his mother Clytemnestra.
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It was first published in a small El Paso newspaper in 1915, and ten years later its writer achieved worldwide renown. It tells of the pacifistic Indian Demetrio Macias who is forced to side with Mexican rebels to save his family, but almost despite himself he becomes a general in Pancho Villa's army. As the rebels start losing, Macias becomes disenchanted with the life of a revolutionary. Regarded as the greatest novel of the Mexican revolution, FTP, what is this Mariano Azuela work?
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It was written during a tour of prisons the author made in Scandinavia, Britain, and the U.S. The author lets us know that the only real events were the bus boycott and the erection of Shanty Town; and the only real characters were Professor Hoernle and Ernest Oppenheimer. It opens with the protagonist responding to a letter about his sister Gertrude and a decision to search for his son Absalom. He learns that Absalom was involved in the murder of Arthur Jarvis, whose father James is befriended by Reverend Stephen Kumalo, the protagonist. FTP, name this masterful portrayal of post-World War II South Africa, the best-known novel of Alan Paton.
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Its author argues that its subject can be enhanced by intelligent use of "peripeteia", or reversal, and "anagnorisis", or recognition. Defining his subject as a form of "mimesis", or imitation, to which we are naturally drawn due to our imitative nature, the author then divides his subject into six parts: spectacle, thought, character, plot, melody, and diction, and holds that the best tragedies tells of a hero's fall from happiness to misery due to some hamartia on his part. FTP, what is this philosophical work discussing literature by Aristotle?
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J.D. Salinger used a line from this poet to name his book "Raise High the Roof-Beam, Carpenters." Swinburne translated the "Ode to Anactoria," but believed that Catullus's translation couldn't be improved. Though much of this poet's work was likely destroyed by Byzantine emperors, odes and fragments like "Cleis" and "It Was You, Atthis" survive. Other than a brief sojourn in Sicily, her whole life was spent in Mytilene, where she led a band of women devoted to music and poetry. Often called the "tenth muse", FTP, name this ancient Greek poet who supposedly threw herself into the sea after her rejection by a beautiful youth.
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Late in this novel, a group distributes leaflets encouraging action against "the enemy," which is identified with the "powers of Imperialism, the multi-nationals, and the powers that be." A war being fought in the background of this work leads to a copper boom in the second section, "The New Domain," and the title character of the third section starts a Madonna cult to honor his mother. The main character has an affair with Yvette and later beats her, before leaving for London to marry Kareisha, the daughter of Nazruddin. With the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko represented in the character of the "Big Man," for ten points, identify this novel about the merchant Salim and the travails of an African town situated in the titular location, written by V. S. Naipaul.
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Later works by this author include Taratuta, and Still Life With Pipe, The Garden Next Door, and A House in the Country, which he considered his best novel. Starting with his first collection, Summer Vacation and Other Stories, he displayed a keen psychological insight into the dreams and fears of his characters, seen in novels like This Sunday, Hell Has No Limits, and Coronation. FTP, who is this Chilean author of the Latin boom, probably best known for The Obscene Bird of Night?
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Major commentaries on this work were written by "Odd Tablet" and Zhiyanzhai, and it first became known to the public after an edition was published by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E. This novel, which was notably translated into English by David Hawkes, features a frame story in which Zhen Shi-yin reads the lines "truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true / Real becomes not-real when the unreal's real" during a reverie which begins with the fairy Disenchantment deciding to reincarnate the Crimson Pearl Flower. This novel's main plot describes the love between Lin Dai-yu and Bao-yu during the downfall of the Jia family, and the lives of the "Twelve Beauties of Jinling." For 10 points, name this eighteenth century classic Chinese novel written by Cao Xuequin.
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Martin Noth conjectured that it was the second of five historical works written by an author known as D. In its seventh chapter, the thief Achan was stoned in the valley of Achor. It ends with the burial of Eleazar next to his son and the bones of Joseph at Shechem, where were brought safely back from Egypt, and its chapter 24, verse 20 contains its namesake's famous farewell address. Its famous episode was preceded by an encounter with the Commander of the Lord's army in which the title figure took off his sandals, and it mentions that the Book of Jasher also recounted the event in which the moon stopped in the Valley of Aijalon and the sun stopped over Gibeon so that God gave the Israelites victory over the five kings. FTP, name this Old Testament book that saw the conquest of Canaan, including the Battle of Jericho.
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Minor characters in this work include the lustful Scottish Captain Hausbank and a pair of prostitutes who administer magical vials of perfume and are nicknamed the Skeleton and the Mattress. Much of the center portion of the book concerns the adventures of a tulip tattooed mercenary called the Turk whose retinue includes a quartet of Swiss giants, and who long ago left his childhood friends Agostino and Nicolo behind. It contains two epigraphs, one by Mirza Ghalib and another by Petrarch, and opens with a cart approaching the glowing lake of Sikri and a blonde man's demands to see the emperor, so that he might tell him how they are both descended from the title figure, a woman alternatively known as Lady Black Eyes and Qara Koz. For 10 points, identify this 2008 work that juxtaposes events set at Akbar's Mughal court with Machiavelli's Renaissance home, a novel by Salman Rushdie.
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Minor characters in this work include the maid Katrina and as it opens a teacher arrives at her friend's house for a surprise visit. However upon noticing that she isn't prepared, she agrees to go back out to the car and pretends to arrive again. In another scene the two women discuss the progress made on an elaborate cement sculpture garden that was begun 15 years ago, after one of them became a widow. Later in this work one of the characters lights the candles spread throughout the setting, an oddly decorated home in New Bethesda, in the heart of the Karoo Desert. As in another play by its author, A Lesson From Aloes, it is the arrival of a third character, in this case, Pastor Byleveld, that catalyzes the action. Ultimately, Elsa Barlow, convinces her eccentric friend not to move to a home for the elderly. For 10 points, identify this work that takes its title from Miss Helen's decision to blaze a creative path to a metaphorical Muslim holy site, a play by Athol Fugard.
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Minor characters include Marie Tomlinson, a secretary, and Mr. Macmillan, who meets the protagonist on a ship traveling home. After being given the opportunity to study law in England via scholarship from the Umuofia Progressive Union, the main character decides to study English instead and eventually lands a job under William Green at the Civil Service. However complications arise when the main character's mother, Hannah, threatens to commit suicide if he marries his osu girlfriend Clara. Clara reveals herself to be pregnant, and after her abortion she breaks up with the protagonist who is depressed and begins to accept bribes. FTP, this describes the plot of what novel centering on Obi Okonkwo, Chinua Achebe's sequel to Things Fall Apart?
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Near the beginning of this work, its central figure speaks of a dream in which a beautiful woman dressed in white expressed her wish that he would "arrive at fertile Phthia on the third day." Later, the title character speaks of his friends Simmias the Theban and Cebes, both of whom have money, and notes that he has friends in Thessaly. The second half of this work is devoted to an imaginary speech delivered by the laws of a certain city, which argue that since a citizen enjoys the benefits of life in a state, he must subject itself to the decisions of that state. Thus, the central figure refuses to go anywhere, even though a ship from Delos is scheduled to arrive later that day. FTP, name this dialogue in which Socrates explains to the title figure why he won't escape from jail, a work which comes between the Apology and the Pheado.
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Near the end of this work, the protagonist is told "not to seek to be master in everything", while earlier that same character's wisdom is questioned, when a character accused of treason declares, "If you think obstinacy without wisdom/ a valuable possession, you are wrong". A messenger informs the title character of Polybus's death, confirming the fears of that man's wife, who departs, imploring that a "God keep you from the knowledge of who you are". We learn of his wife's death after the title character has also fled, learning the truth about Tieresias's claims about the murderer of Laius. FTP, name this work by Sophocles, which concludes with the protagonist blinding himself for his crimes of parricide and incest.
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Not long after this artist turned to illustrating historical novels, his son died, which led to the loss of this man's pension and the creation of the works for which he is now most famous. In writing about his own work, this artist claimed that only at 73 did he "finally comprehend something of the true quality of birds," and that at 110, "each line shall surely possess a life of its own." His earlier works include two collections of Festivals as well as a depiction of foreigners observing the customs of his country, but he is most famous for a collection of which one drawing inspired Rilke's poem Der Berg, as well as his namesake manga. A late contemporary of Hiroshige, for ten points, identify this painter of The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, as well as such ukiyo-e works as Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji.
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Of his short stories only a few have been translated, except for those like in "Hungry Stones" and "Broken Ties." His adolescent love can be seen in The Crescent Moon, and his three major plays of the era include The Post Office, The King of the Dark Chamber, and Chitra. Sadhana is an address on life and its realization that uses a common them for this writer, whose Western reputation was largely made by William Butler Yeats. FTP, name this author of Gitanjali, an Indian winner of the Nobel in Literature.
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One character in this work frequently displays tricky billiard shots and then launches into long rhetorical speeches, and when he is stopped, always mutters, "I am silent." His nephew had drowned and was close friends with Peter Trofimov, who is very close with his niece Anya. Anya is the daughter of Madame Ranevsky, who is finally forced to sell her estate to Lopahkin, a former servant. It is a symbolic portion of that estate that gives this work its title. FTP, name this play by Anton Chekhov.
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One ethnic group based in this modern-day nation has an epic called the Book of Dede Korkut. One novel set in this country centers on Ka, who attempts to secure the release of a rebel named Blue. That novel includes a television production of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, during which Kadife must remove a headscarf. This country is home to the author of Snow, who openly ignores this nation's Article 301, a law that forbids discussing the Armenian Genocide. For 10 points, name this nation that is home to Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk.
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One of his novels concerns a man who has a stroke due to excessive sexual arousal, while another depicts a disintegrating marriage through the use of parallel diaries. His first novel is about a westernized engineer named Joji and is called Naomi. A prolific translator, his early work, like the short story "The Tattooer" bears the influence of Edgar Allen Poe. He treated the conflict between modernity and national identity in his essay "In Praise of Shadows." Other works include Quicksand, Captain Shigemoto's Mother, and The Key, but he is best known for a novel about four sisters living in Osaka. FTP, who is this Japanese writer, best known for Some Prefer Nettles and The Makioka Sisters?
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One of this author's protagonists seeks his father in a classified ad before strangling Karima. In another of his works, a young man kills his boss on the same day that his country's president is shot. This author of The Search and The Day the Leader Died wrote about Hamida, who is lured into prostitution by Ibrahim Faraj in one work, and another novel centers on sons that are cast out of their father's house who live in an alley. Midaq Alley and Children of Gebelawi, for 10 points, are works by this author of Sugar Street, Palace Walk, and Palace of Desire, which comprise his Cairo Trilogy.
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Only the title character's dog Tresor and nurse Terentyevna are present for his final days. Beginning on March 18 and continuing until April 1, when the title character dies in the night, it tells of Liza's love for a prince from St. Petersburg and her subsequent marriage to Bizmyonkov. The author of this group of short stories used a portion of the title to signify the main characters of other works like A Hero of Our Time and Eugene Onegin. FTP, identify this short story first published in 1850, whose title character is the constant fifth wheel Chulkaturin, written by Ivan Turgenev.
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Other stories in the namesake collection include "A Temporary Matter" and "The Third and Final Continent". The story itself is set during a tour of the temple of Konarak and hills of Udayagiri and Khandagiri by a family visiting India, during which the tour guide, Mr. Kapasi, sees a potential cure for his loneliness in the person of Mrs. Das, who in a moment alone confides in him that her second child was born of an affair of which her husband is unaware. FTP, what is this title story of a recent Pulitzer Prize winning collection by Jhumpa Lahiri?
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Peter Barry compared this novel to a Henry James short story about the writer Henry St. George. One character often checks his watch on the final day of the main action, the same day that another man showed up with his hair cut like a priest. A character in this novel is accused of an unartistic "sealed play," and nearly forfeits because of a sick child. Based on the author's own experience reporting on a similar event for a newspaper, it chronicles a showdown which begins at the Koyokan Restaurant and takes 237 moves to complete. For 10 points, name this Yasunari Kawabata novel about Shusai, the titular player of a Japanese board game.
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Poet John Greening wrote a group of these known as the "Huntingdonshire" ones, while Conrad Aiken published a group known as "Brownstone" in 1942. Six "town" ones were written by Mary Wortley Montagu, while a group of "piscatory" ones were written by Phineas Fletcher. The most famous group of these inspired Jan Novak's 1969 composition Mimus Magicus, and ends with a poem about a man who was in love with Cythoris, who is called "Lycoris" in the poem. Another of those poems is known as the "Pharmaceutria," while the most notorious of them celebrates the birthday of Salonius, the son of Gaius Asinius Pollio. FTP, name this group of ten pastoral poems written by Virgil.
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Premiered at Yale in 1974, it may be the only musical staged in a swimming pool. Cast members included Christopher Durang, Sigourney Weaver, and Meryl Streep. Songs by Stephen Sondheim punctuate this story, inspired by a Greek comedy, of a duel between Shakespeare and Shaw to determine who is the best playwright. FTP, name this work, based on a play by Aristophanes and featuring a chorus of amphibious creatures.
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Raphael's School of Athens depicts Plato carrying this dialogue. Socrates is joined by Hermocrates and Critias, and all three question the title character, an astronomer, on the nature of the universe. They discuss with the title character the origin of the visible world, and Plato addresses the maker of the heavenly bodies as Demiurge, 'God', Father and begetter. It is most famous, however, for a reference made by Critias, who learned the story from Dropides, who learned the story from Solon the Archon. FTP, identify this dialogue in which the first literary reference to Atlantis is made.
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Richard Wright was inspired by the work of this author to spend the final months of his life writing poetry. This author's first book written without collaborators was Seashell Game, and he created a new subgenre with his collection Winter Days. He was inspired by Butcho to publish A Visit to the Kashima Shrine. He wrote a famous poem about a frog leaping into a pond, and took his name from the banana plant hut he once lived in. Many of his works were based on the idea of sabi, the perfect spiritual serenity obtained by immersing oneself in nature. For ten points, name this poet of Narrow Road to the Deep North, an Edo period Japanese author and master of the Haiku.
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Robert Tofte entitled his 1597 collection of love lyrics with this woman's name, and Friedrich Schiller wrote a series of poems to her as well. Lord Byron uses her as the Venetian lady who is the wife of the Turk, pirate, and title character in the poem "Beppo." Scholars say the original one was actually a woman of Avignon, married to Hugues de Sede, who was first spotted by a poet in a church on April 6th, 1327. That poet made her the subject of his collection of lyrics, not sonnets, called Rime or Canzoniere. FTP, who was this beloved of Petrarch?
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This author's only significant book was made into a film by Peter Greenaway in 1996, and has been translated into English by Arthur Waley and Ivan Morris. Written in the 10th century AD, her book is a compilation of various stories and tales, including chapters on "Embarrassing Things" and "People Who Seem to Suffer." FTP, name the Japanese author best known for her Pillow Book.
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Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel were most responsible for this writer's exposure to surrealism, which is reflected in his A Poet in New York and his comic play The Shoemaker's Marvelous Wife. He was lifted to fame by his series of ballads Romancero Gitano, which embodied his theme of sexual repression, but is most famous for his three tragedies, including Yerma. FTP name the assassinated author of The House of Bernardo Alba and Blood Wedding.
the material, formal, efficient, and final causes - in Part 3 of Book 2. Book 1 gets straight to the main point discussing nature as a principle of change, and the final four of the eight total books all deal primarily with motion. FTP, name this work by Aristotle which deals with the development of a science, rather than mechanics or electromagnetics as its name might imply.
Sarah Waterlow wrote a 1984 philosophical study on this work. The end of its most famous part uses the example of a wall, which comes about because stones sink to the bottom and wood floats to the top, or perhaps it comes about for protection. Prior to this, the work defines the ideas of luck and chance as those things which occur "for something" but only coincidentally, after discussing the four causes
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Section 5 remarks that the wise see people as "straw dogs," a kind of animal that was used for sacrifice and then discarded. Section 50 claims that three out of ten people are followers of life and three out of ten are followers of death, while another 30% of people are just passing from birth to death. Section 34 notes that the titular concept nourishes the ten thousand things, and yet it is not their lord, being very small. The 81st and final section states that good men do not argue and the learned do not know. This book was probably written in the 6th century BC by a man who is thought to have been archivist to a Chou emperor, and was allegedly written at the request of an officer in charge of the Jade Gate. FTP, name this classic Chinese text by Lao Tsu.
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She has been trained for her current situation by Aunt Lydia, and her first name might be June, but that is not stated definitively. She sometimes stops at "the wall" to look for Luke, and her best friend from college, Moira, has become a prostitute. Her regular shopping partner hangs herself after being outed as a member of the underground resistance movement Mayday. She must wear all red and work as a surrogate for Serena Joy in the household of Commander Fred. For 10 points, name this oppressed woman who lives in the Republic of Gilead and is used for procreation in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.
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She lived for a time in Alba with her companions, whose chanting caused every beast and cow within earshot to give two-thirds more milk. A man sent to protect her and her three companions was forced by an oath to attend several ale feasts, and a man sent to spy on her lost an eye to a thrown fidchell piece. The sight of a raven sipping blood in the snow prefigured her affair with a son of Usnach [OOS-nach]. Fergus took up service with Ailill [AL-il] and Medb [MAYV] after Eogan treacherously killed her lover Noisiu [NOY-shu]. FTP, name this character in the Ulster cycle whose incredible beauty brought many sorrows.
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Sheridan La Fanu wrote about the ghost of one which pursues Reverend Jennings in "The Green Tea." Leading Filipino writer Nick Joaquin wrote about four of them who went to Eden. Octavio Paz wrote about one who is a grammarian, a white one appears in the title of one of Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga volumes, and a mountain named for another is dreamt of in the title of a Derek Walcott play. Their king, Sun Wukong, is a leading character in Journey to the West, and an army of them is led by Hanuman in the Ramayana. FTP, name this type of animal whose "house" you are welcomed to in a Kurt Vonnegut collection, and whose paw, according to W.W. Jacobs, brings three perilous wishes.
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Short stories by this writer include "Mixing Cocktails" and "Illusion," while protagonists created by this writer who are unlucky in love include Marya Zelli and Julia Martin. This writer's novel about the aging Sasha Jensen's return to Paris and her subsequent affairs with a gigolo was written in stream of consciousness and titled Good Morning Midnight. In a novel by this author, another protagonist is abandoned by her British husband Lancelot Grey Hugh Smith, at which point Anna Morgan shacks up with an older man and becomes a chorus girl. That novel, Voyage in the Dark was followed by a novel that re-imagines a Victorian classic and ends with a suicide by Edward Rochester's creole wife, Bertha. For 10 points, identify this author of The Left Bank and Wide Sargasso Sea.
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Some of his dramatic idiosyncrasies are said to be derived from other playwrights, such as Apollodorus of Carystus. Nevertheless, he is known for a number of dramatic scenes including Chaerea's report of his rape of a girl, Micio's forgiveness of Aeschinus and Bacchis' renunciation of Pamphilus. Because of some of his innovations, he was accused of contaminating his plays with secondary Greek sources by his contemporary Luscius Lanuvinius. During his life, he only produced six plays, including The Andrian Girl and The Self-Tormentor, before dying in a shipwreck. FTP, identify this author of the Phormio and Hecyra, the greatest comic dramatist after Plautus.
name this Russian Symbolist poet and author of The Twelve.
Some of his major poetic works include "The City," and "Earth's Bubbles." These vary from earlier collections, which had the central theme of Sophia, the feminine personification of Divine Wisdom. Those early collections include The Unknown Woman and Verses about the Beautiful Lady. Later poems, like "The Scythians" express his satisfaction at his country's World War One victory over the West. For 10 points
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Some of this writers early works describe the trials of the titular Gonza the Lancer and an evil person who serves at the titular Courier from Hell, a theme also explored in his work The Woman-Killer and the Hell of Oil. The title character of one of this writers's works wins his sister and her husband the general to his side, and he later meets up with Go Sangei in the presence of the Nine Immortals to win a final battle. In addition to The Battles of Coxinga, this writer created a work in which the paper merchant Jihei is in love with the courtesan Koharu, in addition to one in which the evil Kuheiji attempts to part Tokubei from his love, the teahouse worker Ohatsu. For ten points, identify this playwright who wrote about Love Suicides at Amajima and Sonezaki.
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Tension arises in this novel when the understanding Mr. Brown is replaced by the uncompromising Reverend James Smith, who encourages the fanaticism of the young Christian convert Enoch, who provokes the climax of the novel by ripping the mask off of an egwugwu during a religious ceremony. The protagonist is forced into exile for seven years after his gun misfires, killing a village boy. After his return to Ufuomia, his fears of appearing weak like his father Unoka prompt him to beat his son Nwoye and to kill a government messenger with his machete, after which he hangs himself. Centering on the character Okonkwo, FTP, what is this novel, the masterpiece of Chinua Achebe?
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The "Third Episode" of this work is written as a series of exchanges between a young girl and an advice columnist for Feminine World magazine. Its minor characters include the adulterous Dr. Nastini as well as Captain Gnorostiaga, whose police report detailing a servant's murder of her boyfriend "Pancho" in her mistress' bed takes up much of the "Twelfth Episode." The "First Episode" opens with a quote from the lyricist Homero Manzi and introduces the protagonist's lost love Nene via a letter. Like its author's previous novel, its narrative makes frequent references to the American cinema to illustrate events in Buenos Aires Province, this time with a focus on the tubercular Juan Carlos. First published in Spanish with a title that translates as Little Painted Mouths, for 10 points, identify this novel,partially named for Argentina's national dance, a work by Manuel Puig.
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The 13-day gap between two dates in this story corresponds to the gap between the old and new calendar systems, suggesting a dream as the explanation for its events. While wearing a gold-braided uniform, the title object is lost, but when its owner tries to place an ad to find it, the newspaper refuses. Later, it is confiscated from the barber Yakovlev and returned to Kovalyov, but it refuses to stick to his face. FTP, name this short story by Nikolai Gogol about a wayward proboscis.
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The 16th-century Polish poet Jan Kochanowski wrote a group of 19 of these, which concern his daughter Orszula. Peter Maxwell Davies wrote one (*) "on a plainsong for Michael Vyner," while Ruth Tomalin wrote one "for dormice." Denise Levertov wrote two of them and a psalm, while Aaron Copland composed several, one of which was in memory of Igor Stravinsky. Rupert Brooke's "The Funeral of Youth" is one, and Dorothy Parker's begins "Lilacs blossom just as sweet / Now my heart is shattered." More notable ones include a poem written in 1846 about its author's son Waldo, and a modern one about the victims of Hiroshima. FTP, identify this term referring to works by Emerson and Penderecki, which describes a poem or song of lamentation.
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The Artamanov Business and The Life of Klim Samgin are two of this man's later works. At various times he was a scullery boy, gardener, dockhand, and fisherman before writing his first story, "Makar Chudra." His works attracted the attention of Korolenko, who helped him get stories like "Chelkash" published. His best-known work concerns Luka, Satin, and other characters in a sleazy flophouse. FTP, identify this author of Childhood, Mother, and The Lower Depths.
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The French translation of this man's book on the legends of his native country so impressed Paul Valery that his laudatory letter was used as the book's preface. His decade spent in Paris was later chronicled by fellow countryman Luis Aragon. In 1933, he returned to his native country but saw one of his manuscripts suppressed by Jorge Ubico. He wrote a book in which the "Great Fleabag" is married to someone who is poisoned by the Machojons but comes back as a ghost to protect the forest, and another in which the title character breaks up the marriage of Camilla and Angel Face. For 10 points, name this Guatemalan author of Men of Maize and El Senor Presidente.
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The author of this work identifies himself with both Jesus Christ and Alfred Dreyfuss, the latter "hounded, spat on and slandered." He also seems to be a "young boy in Byelostok," who is beaten and witnesses his mother's rape during a pogrom. He also identifies himself with Anne Frank, "transparent as a branch in April." Most importantly, he identifies with the 34,000 Jews who in September 1941 were taken and shot in a ravine outside of Kiev. FTP, name this 1961 poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, which inspired the thirteenth symphony of Shostakovitch.
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The Pontianak, a female vampire in Malay legend, performs this act upon itself in order to feed upon its victims. It happened to Jamadagni in revenge for the killing of Kaartaveerya by Jamadagni's son Parasurama. A giant named Chrysaor was born after this happened to a monster in Greek myth. It happened to a god who had been sent as a hostage with the speech-impaired Hoenir, and it also happened to a god of wisdom after his uncle Sani looked at him. FTP, name this misfortune which befell Medusa and Mimir, as well as Ganesha and Maximilien Robespierre.
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The Valkryies describes his time as part of the "Alternative Society," an anti-capitalist group that dabbled in mysticism, which he joined after his partnership with the rock star Raul Seixas had ended. His experience as a pilgrim on the road to Santiago marks his first novel The Diary of a Magus. Other works include By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, The Fifth Mountain, and Veronika Decides to Die, He is most well known for his second novel concerning an shepherd boy's journey across North Africa in search of treasure. FTP identify this Brazilian, the best selling novelist in the Portugese language, who wrote The Alchemist.
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The action occurs in part because the mahout is twelve hours away, and in part because of the death of a cow, the destruction of a bamboo hut, and the raiding of a fruit stand. The narrator comments that he was hated by large numbers of people, because it was the only time in his life he was important enough to be hated; later he says that his life was one long struggle not to be laughed at, which is why he commits the title deed, "solely to avoid looking a fool." For 10 points, name this essay set in Moulmein and written by George Orwell.
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The author of this work dubbed it the literature of "okashi", or charming, and this work became the model for the genre known as "zuihitsu", or miscellany. Items such as "snow on the houses of common people", and "a woman of the lower classes dressed in a scarlet-trouser skirt" fall under this work's chapter entitled Vexatious Things, while a similar list comprises another chapter titled Beautiful Things. Written under the patronage of Empress Sadako in the late 10th century, FTP, identify this work of Japanese literature by Sei Shonagon.
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The chorus ends this play with an ironic response to one of the main characters' last speech, where he proclaims "Great Victory, continually crown my life." The sacrifice of Menoeceus is almost avoided, but he plunges his own sword into his throat to save Thebes in accordance with the prophecy of Tiresias. Towards the end, the new monarch Creon orders that Antigone must marry Haemon. Set against the backdrop of the Seven's battle against Thebes, it is its creator's longest surviving play. FTP, identify this Euripides drama whose chorus is the title group.
Julio Cortazar
The classic film Blow Up is based on his short story "Las Babas del Diablo." Born in Brussels, he did most of his best work in his home country and in Paris, where he worked as a UNESCO translator and played jazz trumpet. FTP name the late Argentine writer whose best works include the novels Around the Day in 80 Worlds, A Manual for Manuel, and Hopscotch.
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The first English work inspired by them was probably Anthony Barclay's 1514 work of the same name. They feature Mopsus and Menalcas reflecting on the apotheosis of Daphnis in the fifth. Two boys, Chromis and Mnasyllos, encounter a hung-over Silenus in the sixth. The tenth can be read as an homage to Cornelius Gallus, while the second features Corydon. Meliboeus contrasts his poor fortune with that of the contented Tityrus in the first. And although it has often been read as a Christian allegory, it is much more likely that the fourth celebrates Antony and Octavian's pact at Brindisium. FTP identify this series of pastoral poems the first notable achievement of Vergil.
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The husband's affair with Barbara Lynch and his mother forcing his wife to eat eggplant and take harp lessons were some of the causes of the marital problems of the central couple in this novel. The action culminates aboard the aptly named New Fidelity, where the now seventy-two-year-old wife consummates her relationship with a seventy-six-year-old lost love. This reunion is made possible indirectly by the suicide of Jeremiah which, in turn, leads to the husband's accidental death after he falls from a mango tree while trying to recover a lost parrot. FTP, name this book centering on Fermina Daza, Florentino Ariza, and Juvenal Urbino; a novel in which, in order to have sex without scandal, two seventy-year-olds raise a quarantine flag; a work by Gabriela Garcia Marquez.
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The man at the center of this novella was the inheritor of the Divine Face cattle ranch known for his love of horses, falconry, church pomp and firearms. The milk vendor Clotilde Armenta frantically tried to prevent the event the narrator is investigating 21 years later. After Bayardo San Roman discovered that his new wife Angela Vicario had been deflowered, her brothers Pedro and Pablo reluctantly kill Santiago Nasar. FTP, what is this novella by Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
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The narrator of one work by this author notes that “brutish necessity wipes its hands on the napkin of a dirty cause.†In that poem by this man, the “colonel of carrion†cries “Waste no compassion on these separate dead!†while the narrator asks “Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?†In a play by this author, one character remarks that to escape from life is the most dangerous crime of all. That play by this author centers on a charcoal burner named Makak who shares a jail cell with Tigre and Souris. Maud and Dennis Plunkett move to the islands to retire in another of his works, which sees characters like Hector, Achille, and Philoctete mirror the events of ancient Greek epics. For 10 points, name this author of “A Far Cry from Africa,†Dream on Monkey Mountain, and Omeros, a St. Lucian poet.
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The only attempt at an English translation of this work was made by the John Dee. Ole Worm made a Latin translation, which was banned by Pope Gregory IX, while the translation made by the Greek scholar Theodorus Philetas provides its most common name. This work is thought to have its source in the Book of Enoch, and the beings described in it are believed to be Nephilim. A couplet by this work's author appears in the story "The Nameless City," while John Merrit accidentally finds this book on a bookshelf in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." Only five copies are known and can be found at locations such as the British Museum and Miskatonic University. For ten points, identify this fictional work, ascribed to an insane Arab, Abdul Alhazred, which is purportedly the source of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.
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The originator of this legend may have been Heliodorus, the chancellor of Seleucus IV Philopatorm, who was prevented by the priest Onias from looting the Temple. A similar story from a cuneiform tablet lends veracity to this legend, which is set during the years following the victory at Carchemish by Nebuchadnezzar. Three Talmudic units of weight, the peras, shekel, and mina, have been hypothesized to be represented. After "the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone" are praised at a banquet, the central event occurs and the inability to vocalize three verbs meaning "to count," "to weigh," and "to divide" render an inscription undecipherable. Depicted in the fifth chapter of Daniel, this is, FTP, what harbinger that, according to the prophet, foretold the downfall of King Belshazzar of Babylon?
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The pastor Marius Byleveld attempts to get sculptress Helen Martins to move to a retirement home in a play by this author, who also wrote a drama in which Shark, the leader of the tsotsis, is lectured by Father Higgins. Another of his plays takes place as the two biracial title characters wander near a river following their expulsion from town in a sweep by white supremacists. Another of his titles refers to the invisible link between Morris and Zachariah Pietersen, and he also wrote about Sam and Willie's return to subservience at the hands of an insecure white teenager. For 10 points, name this author of No-Good Friday, The Blood Knot, and Master Harold and the Boys.
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The protagonist of one novel by this author regularly meets with an intellectual group called The Table at the EL-AY Café; later, that protagonist, Julie Summers, marries the mechanic Abdu. This author wrote a novel in which Ann Davis has an affair with the painter Gideon Shibalo in a work that centers on Jessie Stillwell. This author of The Pickup and Occasion for Loving wrote of Jacobus finding a dead body on Mehring's farm in another of her novels. Daniel steals a gun from the central family of another of her books, which takes its epigraph from the Prison Notebooks and sees the title servant protect Bam and Maureen Smales during an uprising. For 10 points, name this South African author of The Conservationist and July's People.
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The protagonist of one of this author's novels is the creator of works called Complacency and Eyes on the Horizon, and is disappointed by his grandson's obsession with the Lone Ranger and other American pop cultural icons. Another of his novels follows Christopher Banks, a detective who travels to Shanghai to search for his parents. In another, the protagonist buys a cassette by Judy Bridgewater named Songs after Dark after being brought up at the boarding school Hailsham. This author of An Artist of the Floating World and Never Let Me Go also wrote a novel about Reggie Cardinal and Lord Darlington's butler Stevens. For 10 points, name this author of The Remains of the Day.
Laura
The subject of love poetry by Petrarch
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The title character finally achieves peace in this novella through the simplicity of his servant Gerasim. He had married Praskovya Fyodorovna because his friends approved, and had built a life based on orderly routine while seeking to become the perfect traditional bureaucrat. The main part of this story deals with his attempts to deal with an incurable illness, which follows the opening section, in which his family and colleagues reflect on how his death will affect their careers and fortunes. FTP, what is this novel by Leo Tolstoy?
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The trouble in this play begins when the writings from the sacred oracle are stolen. The climax occurs during a heated argument between two servants, as one threatens to turn the other into a meatball, the other threatens to twitch the lashes off the other's eyes. The slaves' owner, Demus, owns Nicias and Demosthenes, but favors the hypocritical Paphlagonian, yet by the end the roles are reversed as Agoracritus, the Sausage-Seller, bests the fawning slave who is really meant to represent a tyrant of Athens. FTP, identify this play by Aristophanes, written to satirize Cleon.
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The wife of a man visited by this figure bakes seven loaves of bread to prove that this figure slept for seven days instead of staying awake. Later, he obtains a very special herb but leaves it to be eaten by a snake. Earlier, he had won a major victory in the Cedar Forest, though his triumph brought about the death of a friend of his who had been acculturated by a prostitute named Shamhat. Because he killed both the Bull of Heaven and Humbaba, his friend had to die. FTP, name this pal of Enkidu, a king of Uruk who figures in a Mesopotamian epic.
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Things Which Distract in Moments of Boredom, "Amusing Things" and "Irritating Things" are some of the sections of this book. Written by the daughter of the poet Kiyohara Motosuke, it is the finest example of the zuihitsu (zoo ih HIT su) genre of "random jottings," and gives detailed information about life at the court of the empress Sadako in Japan's Heian period. FTP, name this quasi-diary written by Sei Shonagon.
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This Biblical figure is the namesake of a scientific quantity that is used to characterize the fluidity of material, which is based on the line "the mountains flowed before the Lord." Possibly married to a man named Lapidoth, this woman could often be found at a site between Rama and Bethel. During the battle of Thabor, she indicated the time to attack the enemy, who were led by a man from Hazor. Her namesake song appears after Jael pounded a tent stake through the captain of Jabin's army. Beforehand, she delivered an oracle to Barak commanding him to organize troops to fight Sisera. FTP, name this woman who rendered her judgments beneath a palm tree, the only female Judge.
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This author declares that the title entity is "only my knees all entangled and sinking like stone" in the title poem of the collection Non-Vicious Circle. This author advocated the study of colonization "to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him" and "degrade him" in Discourse on Colonialism. In one of this author's plays, the main character insists on being called X before defending his rape of Miranda. This author wrote a poem that repeats "At the end of daybreak," Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, and rewrote The Tempest to portray Caliban as a hero. For 10 points, name this Francophone writer from Martinique, who co-founded négritude along with Leopold Senghor.
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This author's plays include Exile, his first, titled Alarm Signal, the experimental Wild Man, and one where a troupe of actors plays a game with ropes at its opening called The Other Shore. In addition to his autobiographical One's Man's Bible, he wrote a collection containing the stories "The Accident," where a bicyclist with a baby buggy rides into a bus, and "The Temple," where a newly married couple stops in a rural town during their honeymoon. In addition to his collection Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather, this author wrote a novel about his travels along the Yangtze Rive while misdiagnosed with lung cancer. FTP, name this Chinese Nobel laureate and author of Soul Mountain.
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This poet asked "why should a man wax tears, when his wooden world fails?" in a sonnet whose speaker attempts to describe "faiths that were snapped like wire" after "that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky." This poet observed "The classics can console. But not enough" in a poem which compares "that father and husband's longing" to "the adulterer hearing Nausicaa's name in every gull's outcry." This poet wrote "either I'm nobody, or I'm a nation" in a poem narrated by the sailor Shabine. This poet of "The Schooner Flight," "A City's Death by Fire," and "Sea Grapes" wrote "a smell of dead limes quickens in the nose / The leprosy of empire" in a poem comparing colonial England to a rotting mansion, "Ruins of a Great House." In a long poem by this author, Ma Kilman heals the wound of Philoctete and Major Plunkett researches the history of St. Lucia. For 10 points, name this Caribbean poet of Omeros.
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This woman's works for children are translated into English in Crickets and Frogs: A Fable. She was a village schoolteacher, and donated the proceeds of her work Tala to the relief of Basque children orphaned in the Spanish Civil War. Scarred by an affair with a railway employee who committed suicide, her works include Desolación, Ternura, and Sonetos de la muerte. FTP, name this author, born Lucila Godoy Y Alcayaga, the 1945 Nobel Prize winner in Literature from Chile.
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This work describes "The Philanthropic Ogre," and one section heading is titled "Return" to the title construct. In this work the author describes the central country as "Other" and this work features section titles such like, "The Day of the Dead," and, "The Pacucho and Other Extremes." This work that also contains a section called "Mexican Masks, and this work was written by the author of The Bow and the Lyre and "The Sunstone." For 10 points, name this Octavio Paz work that focuses on the machismo and Mexican history, and is titled after a lonely maze.
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This work includes a prediction that the human race will be destroyed when children are born with grey hair, and the people act with deceit, violence, and disrespect between parent and child. It is dedicated to the author's scheming brother, Perses, in order to instill a respect for hard work and an acceptance for the uneven lots that life deals out. For ten points, name this didactic poem by Hesiod.
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This work reveals that poor-quality hair dye can leave one nearly bald. Written partially to attack a governmental family values campaign, it urges confidence and suggests that men first seduce a lady's maid, in addition to avoiding bad breath and making sure that their togas fit. Though its author reveals that he cheated on her with her own maid, Cypassis, his mistress Corinna is chided for an attempted abortion. Containing numerous references to personal symbols of the Emperor Augustus, it resulted in its author's banishment. FTP, name this sexually graphic work by Ovid.
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Thomas Mann's work The Transposed Heads is subtitled "A Legend of" this country, a journey to which was the subject of a poem that asks the reader, "seest thou not God's purpose from the first"? In Shusaku Endo's Silence, Kichigiro is taken from this country to help Sebastian Rodrigues enter Japan, and the authors of The Middleman and Other Stories, Clear Light of Day, and The Guide hail from this country. The title gem in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone was stolen by John Herncastle in this country, where Gibreel Farishta is a film star in another novel. FTP, name this country, to which Adela Quested and Mrs. Moore make "A Passage To" in an E.M. Forster novel.
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To its south and west are vast swamps, which separate it by a six-month journey from the mail routes. To its north is a galleon that somehow made its way inland, and to its east a mountain range, across which lay Riohacha. Its first appearance was in Leaf Storm, and many miraculous events later occur here, including visiting gypsies bringing flying carpets and the ascension of Remedios the Beauty. Founded by José Arcadio Buendía, FTP, name the city central to the works of Gabriel García Márquez.
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Though she was once quoted as saying, "I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world," her most famous book was eventually revealed to be based on a hoax. A pioneer of the use of film to document culture, she and her husband produced such films as Trance and Dance in Bali and Learning to Dance in Bali. For ten points, who claimed that lack of sexual repression made adolescence less troublesome in Samoa?
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Thought to have been lost forever when the Library of Alexandria burned in 48 BC., historians knew this play existed because Aristophanes and other Greek playwrights of the time made mention of it. Recently discovered among papyrus scrolls inside a mummy, this trilogy about the Trojan War will be staged for the first time in summer 2004 in Cyprus and in Greece by Cyprus' national theater company, Thoc. For 10 points, name this no-longer lost work of Aeschylus named for the Greek hero who slew Hector.
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Throughout this novel, the title character relies on his natural abilities of learning languages and telling lies. The main characters are induced by the effects of a mystical green honey to create the lie at the center of this novel, but are pre-empted in their efforts by the mystic Zosimos. Accompanied by his friends Abdul and the Poet, the title character, the ward of Frederick Barbarossa, attempts to travel to the East to bring the Holy Grail to the kingdom of Prester John. FTP, identify this most recent novel written by Umberto Eco.
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Tsurayuki is forced to write a poem to appease the title god in this man's work Aridoshi. This man wrote the Kadensho, the Kyakuraige, and the Kintoosho, which comprise his technical treatises on writing. A woman pines to death on the title object in this author's work The Clothbeating Rock, while Kumagai admires the flute playing of the title character, whom he later beheads, in this man's play Atsumori. An old gardener plays the title instrument for the love of a princess in this man's play The Damask Drum. In another play, set at Suma beach, this man wrote about the love of Matsukaze and Murasame for Ariwara no Yukihira, an exiled prince. For 10 points, identify this dramatist who preceded Chikamatsu Monzaemon by two centuries, was the son of Kanami, and whose Wind in the Pines is among the foremost of Noh dramas.
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Two of this man's works, The Cabal of Hypocrites and Life of Monsieur de Moliere, were inspired by the French Royal court, and he took inspiration from a native countryman to write Chichikov's Adventures. His ridiculous theatrical works include Flight and a work about Ivan the Terrible's time-traveling adventures, Ivan Vasilievich. He documented the Turbin family during the revolution in The White Guard, while he created the characters Sharik, who undergoes a transformative operation, and Behemoth, a monstrous black cat that serves Woland, the devil, in two other novels. FTP, identify this Russian author of Heart of a Dog and The Master and Margarita.
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Two characters in this novel encounter Jose Luis Borges on the street and repeatedly insult his prose. As a child, one character in this novel entertains himself by catching sparrows and poking needles in their eyes. That character writes a paranoid novel accusing blind people of conspiring to rule the world in its third section, "Report on the Blind." This novel's main plot is intertwined with an italicized account of the last days of General Juan Galo de Lavalle. In this novel, Fernando is murdered by his daughter, who then commits suicide by immolation. That woman, Alejandra Olmos, is the object of Martín Castillo's obsessions. Set during the rule of Juan Perón, for 10 points, name this novel, the magnum opus of Ernesto Sabato.
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Variations of it include the Tamil version of Kampan and an Awadhi version written by Tulsidas. Beginning with a royal birth, this work describes the protagonist's education under Visvamitra, his bending of Shiva's bow, and his marriage to the daughter of king Janaka. The title character is banished to the jungle with his half-brother Laksmana, where his wife is carried off by the Demon King of Lanka. Following her rescue, rumors abound that she slept with the Demon King, and she disappears into the earth after maintaining she was faithful to her husband. FTP, name this romance of an Indian deity and his bride Sita, the shorter of India's two great epic poems, ascribed to Valmiki.
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Wallace Stevens, in his late poem "The Planet on the Table," wrote that a figure of this name "was glad he had written his poems." In another literary work, a character of this name accuses another character of lying before playing the tune "Flout 'em and scout 'em." Later that character enters "like a harpy," removes a banquet, and describes three other characters as "men of sin" who had been belched up by the "never-surfeited sea." The first stanza of a poem of this name mentions the "substanceless blue / Pour of tor and distances," and features a title creature who is described as "God's lioness." One poem in the collection of this name ends "Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air," while another poem begins, "You do not do, you do not do / Any more, black shoe." The poems "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy" appear in, FTP, what final collection by Sylvia Plath, which shares its name with the spirit who helps Prospero in The Tempest?
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When Samos fell to the Persians, the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus made sure to rescue this poet. His popularity was reflected in the statue of him on the Acropolis, and in the many red-figure vases which show him playing the lyre as young men dance around him with abandon. When Francis Scott Key wrote his famous lines, he matched them to the tune of a British drinking song that invoked the name of this Greek poet. FTP, name the 6th-century B.C. poet of many drinking songs and frivolous love songs.
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When she tells her plan to her father, he is furious: "Oh Allah! Have you lost your mind? I won't let you expose yourself to such danger." But she persists, and is taken to the palace to be deflowered and beheaded. With a little help from her sister Dunazade, that execution never comes, since the king keeps thinking, "By Allah, I won't slay her until I hear some more of her wondrous tales." FTP, name this wife of King Shahryar, the teller of the tales of the Arabian Nights.
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While working as a blacksmith, he read Daniel Fagunwa's Forest of a Thousand Demons, which inspired him to write a novel that was published in Britain after it was glowingly reviewed by Dylan Thomas. He was criticized in his home country for saying seemingly pro-colonialist things, such as "the wild people of the jungles are as senseless as donkeys," in The Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town. His second novel tells the story of a child who tries to return to his family after being lost in the "Bush of Ghosts," while he adapted folk beliefs in The Brave African Huntress. Those works build on the "quest" theme seen in such works as Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle, while his major work is based on a Yoruba tale about a man who follows a bartender into Deads Town. FTP, name this author of a 1952 novel about The Palm-Wine Drunkard.
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While working as a translator for UNESCO, this author released his first short-story collection, Bestiary, and followed that up with Secret Weapons. His story, "The Devil's Drivel," served as the basis for Antonioni film Blow-Up; however this man is better known for his novels. Those novels include A Model Kit and A Manual for Manuel, though neither introduced the character of Oliviera, an Argentine intellectual, like this author. FTP, identify this writer best known for his novel Rayuela, or Hopscotch.
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Written for the 317 B.C. Lenean festival, for which it won first place, it is the least fragmented of the author's known works. The daughter of the title figure, remains with him, despite her mother's flight to the house of Gorgias, her son by her first husband. The god Pan is responsible for the meeting of Myrrhine and Sostratos, who are eventually married. For ten points, name this play, about Knemon, the cantankerous title figure in this most famous work by Menander.
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Written in Attic Greek by a priest of the Temple of Delphi, it is dedicated to Sosius Senecio. The author later expressed his satisfaction with its format in his work Moralia. First translated into English in 1579 by Sir Thomas North, it tells of the savage Macedonian measures taken after the death of Hephaestion and characterizes Theseus as a "raper of women." More famous is the tale of how Alexander subdued Bucephalus. Written in and around 100 AD, at present 44 of its 50 portraits are extant. FTP, identify this biographical classic by Plutarch.
